Archives - Mathematics: Page 22
Author: paul carson (Fri Feb 17, 2006 1:45 am)
Title: MATHEMATICS - three-dimensional sphere
For 100 years, mathematicians have been trying to prove a conjecture that was first proposed by Henri Poincaré relating to an object known as the three-dimensional sphere, or 3-sphere. The conjecture singles out the 3-sphere as being unique among all three-dimensional objects, or manifolds. A proof of the Poincaré conjecture has finally come, with the work of a young Russian mathematician, Grigori Perelman. His analysis also completes a major research program that classifies all possible three-dimensional manifolds. Our universe might have the shape of a 3-sphere. The mathematics has other intriguing connections to particle physics and Einstein’s theory of gravity.
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