MIT数学系Dan Stroock教授所作的澄清

Clarification

I, like several others whom Sylvia Nasar interviewed, am shocked and ang
ered by the article which she and Gruber wrote for the New Yorker. Having
seen Yau in action during his June conference on string theory, Nasar led
me to believe that she was fascinated by S-T Yau and asked me my opinion
about his activities. I told her that I greatly admire Yau's efforts to
support young Chinese mathematicians and to break down the ossified
power structure in the Chinese academic establishment. I then told her t
hat I sometimes have doubts about his methodology. In particular, I told
her that, at least to my ears, Yau weakens his case and lays himself open
to his enemies by sounding too self-promoting.

As it appears in her article, she has purposefully distorted my statement
and made it unforgivably misleading. Like the rest of us, Yau has his
faults, but, unlike most of us, his virtues outweigh his faults.
Unfortunately, Nasar used my statement to bolster her case
that the opposite is true, and for this I cannot forgive her.

澄清

Nasar与Gruber发表在《纽约人》杂志上的文章让我，以及其他接受Sylvia Nasar采
访的人一样，感到震惊与愤怒。Nasar在六月参加了丘担任大会主席的国际超弦大会
后，设法让我相信她对丘成桐非常崇拜，询问我对于他的活动的看法。我告诉她，
我很仰慕丘在支持中国年轻数学家，以及改变中国学术界的腐朽现状所作的努力。
我告诉她，有时候我觉得他的处事方法值得商榷。特别的，我告诉她，至少在我眼
中，丘不注意保护自己，过于特立独行，而把自己暴露在敌人面前。如同她文章中
所写的那样，她有意歪曲我的陈述，并且不可原谅地加以杜撰。

与大多数人一样，丘也有自己的缺点；但是大多数人无法比拟的是，他的高尚品德
远远超过他的缺点。不幸的是，Nasar用我的话来支持她的反面论证。为此我无法原
谅她。

纽约石溪分校数学系教授Michael Anderson致丘先生信件

Dear Yau,

I am furious, and completely shocked, at what Sylvia Nasar wrote. Her qu
ote of me is completely wrong and baseless. There are other factual mist
akes in the article, in addition to those you pointed out.

I have left her phone and email messages this evening and hope to speak
to her tomorrow at the latest to clear this up. I want her to remove th
is statement completely from the article. It serves

no purpose and contains no factual inxxxxation; I view it as stupid goss
ip unworthy of a paper like the New Yorker. At the moment, the print ver
sion has not appeared and so it might be possible to fix this still. I s
pent several hours with S. Nasar on the phone talking about Perelman, Po
incare, etc but it seems I was too naive (and I'm now disgusted) in beli
eving this journalist would report factually.

I regret very much this quote falsely attributed to me and will do what
ever I can to have it removed.

I will keep you inxxxxed as I know more.

Yours, Michael

对于Nasar文章中所写的文字，我感到极为愤怒，非常震惊。他引用我所说的话完全
是错误的，没有根据的。除了你所指出的以外，文章中还有其他不真实的地方。

今天晚上我已经给她留了电话与email，希望明天能够与她交谈，把问题向她说清楚
。我希望他把我的这些话完全从文章中删除。这些话毫无意义可言，完全不包含什
么实际的信息；我只把它看作是愚蠢的闲谈，根本不值得登上《纽约人》杂志的文
章。目前，这期杂志还没有正式印刷，所以还有补救的机会。

我花了许多小时在电话里与S. Nasar讨论Perelman,Poincare等。可是我太天真地（
现在感到极度恶心）相信这个记者会真实地报道我所说的话。

我很抱歉这些话居然被放到了我的嘴里，我会尽全力把它删除的。

在我获得更多信息后，会随时通知您。

Anderson澄清Nasar对他的歪曲引用

Many of you have probably seen the New Yorker article by Sylvia Nasar an
d David Gruber on Perelman and the Poincare conjecture.

In many respects, its very interesting and a pleasure to read. However,
it contains a number of inaccuracies and downright errors.

I spent several hours talking with Sylvia Nasar trying to dissuade her f
rom incorporating the Tian-Yau fights into the article, since it was com
pletely irrelevant and I didn't see the point of dragging readers throug
h the mud.

Obviously I was not successful.

The quote attributed to me on Yau is completely inaccurate and distorted
from some remarks I made to her in a quite different context; I made it
explicit to her that the remarks I was making in that context were pure
ly speculative and had no basis in fact. I did not give her my permissio
n to quote me on this, even with the qualification of speculation.

There are other inaccuracies about Stony Brook. One for instance is the
implication that Tian at MIT was the first to invite Perelman to the US
to give talks. This is of course false - we at Stony Brook were the firs
t to do so. I stressed in my talks with her the role Stony Brook played,
yet she focusses on the （single） talk Grisha gave at Princeton, listi
ng a collection of eminent mathematicians, none of whom is a geometer/to
pologist.

I was not given an opportunity to set the record straight with the New Y
orker before publication; this was partly because I was travelling in Eu
rope at the time this happened, and there was a rush to publish; the pub
lication date is the same as the announcement date of the Fields Medals
I think. I was not sent an advance copy of the article for checking. I s
poke with Sylvia on the phone this morning, to no avail. I've also had s
ome email correspondence with Yau on the matter over the last day. I apo
logized to him and expressed my anger and frustration about what was don
e, confirming to him the quote attributed to me is false and baseless. （
The email to Yau is now already posted on a Chinese blog site!）.

I've learned my lesson on dealing with the media the hard and sour way a
nd am still considering what path to pursue to try to rectify the situat
ion, to the extent still possible.

Sincerely,

Mike

Nasar和Gruber的文章包含了一些不准确，甚至完全错误的信息。

我昨天与Nasar谈了几个小时，希望劝说她把田-丘的争论从文章中删除，因为我觉
得这与文章主题完全无关。

可是我没有成功。

关于Nasar文章中引用的所谓我对丘教授的"评价"是不确切的，完全歪曲了我接受采
访时的本意。我明确告诉她，当时我告诉她的内容是出于假想，没有事实根据。我
从来没有允许她这样引用我的话。

文章对于石溪分校也有不实之处。有一处说，田是最早邀请Perelman到美国访问的
。这当然是错误的。我与石溪分校的同事比田更早。我向Nasar强调石溪分校在其中
所起的作用，可是她只把注意力放在Grisha在普林斯顿所给的唯一一个报告上面，
她给出了一个著名数学家的名单，没有一个几何或拓扑学家。

我没能抓住机会在New Yorker文章发表前向编辑告知文章的真相，这是因为我当时
正在欧洲旅游，而且New Yorker在没有核实的情况下就匆忙发表。我想这篇文章的
出版日期正好就是菲尔兹奖颁发的那一天。之前我居然没有收到作者的稿件以确认
真实性。我今天早上与Nasar在电话里谈，可是没有用。昨天，我已经为这件事与丘
教授通了email，我向他道歉并表达了我对Nasar文章的愤怒与失望，我向他保证，
Nasar对我的引用是完全错误的，没有事实根据的。

我从这次与媒体的交往中体会到了苦涩，也算一种教训。我会尽我的全力来改变目
前的状况，把真相公诸于世。