Talk:Shing-Tung Yau

message: Yau is suing the Nasar, Gruber and the fact checker at the New Yorker for defamation. It should have been pretty
clear to anybody reading this article that it was highly opinionated and approaching defamation. The fact that it has
been used so uncritically in wikipedia is quite disturbing.
Um, actually he hasn't sued them yet, he has demanded a retraction and apology, and he has retained a lawyer.  If his allegations prove true it will indeed be disturbing for the New Yorker's reputation, but I don't think you can blame Wikipedia.--GaeusOctavius 00:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: New Yorker Article

message: I have removed the paragraph on the New Yorker article debate for several reasons.
Firstly, the New Yorker article is not faithfully represented.   Nowhere does the
article accuse Yau of formally contesting Perelman's priority in the proof of the
Poincare conjecture.   
The New Yorker article also does not say that Zhu and Cao claimed to be the "first to 'complete'
the proof using Hamilton Perelman theory."  The article directly cites the paper itself,
:By the end of the following week, the title of Zhu and Cao’s paper on the A.J.M.’s Web site had changed, to "A Complete Proof of the Poincaré and Geometrization Conjectures: Application of the Hamilton-Perelman Theory of the Ricci Flow. The abstract had also been revised. A new sentence explained, This proof should be considered as the crowning achievement of the Hamilton-Perelman theory of Ricci flow.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/08/28/060828fa_fact2?currentPage=9
Note three things : 
a)  
:No claim is made that Yau authored the paper. 
b)  
:The new yorker article does not accuse yau of making claim to being "the first to complete", rather, simply his students published "a complete proof". Nor is any subsequent retraction alleged. (this weird situation resulted from Perelman's never submitting a polished proof to a journal.)
c) 
:It says the proof is the crowning achievement OF the Hamilton-Perelman theory.  This means the achievment belongs to the Hamilton-Perelman theory, not the authors, which do not, again, include Yau.
That is my first objection to these paragraphs, that the New Yorker Article is incorrectly
presented.
Secondly, the New Yorker cannot be considered a reliable source with respect to priority in mathematical research which inevitability requires authority in mathematics itself.  Wiki 
policy is clear on this :
:Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy, or are authoritative in relation to the subject at hand.
Nassar is not generally regarded as a reporter at all, but rather a biographer.   At least
two of the sources she quotes have publically stated she has misquoted them :   
http://www.doctoryau.com/letter_stroock.html
http://www.doctoryau.com/letter_anderson.html
She does not pass the 'trustworthy' test in this instance and is of course not authoritative in relation to this subject.
Wikipedia's policies state that poorly sourced material, when they refer to a living person,
must be removed immediately due to their potential for personal harm.
This controversy amounts to so much rumor.   This brings me to my third and least important
reason.   This is a man who is arguably the creator of modern geometrical analysis.  His
work forms the foundation of String Theory.   The importance of these achievements cannot be
overstated.
An article by a non-mathematician claiming that - in a paper he did not author - he *intended* to steal credit but changed his mind - is totally out of place
when it occupies 30% of an article otherwise devoted to factual, verifiable and accurate
portrayals of his work.
Incidentally - as we are not here to decide these matters but rather judge their
relevance and reliability - but as an aside, Perelman has refused prizes in the past.
Also, the completion of the proof - making it suitable for publication in a journal - was
necessitated by Perelman's refusal to submit the paper to any refereed journal, 
and his refusal to respond to any requests to flesh it out in a form suitable for 
publication.   This highly unusual situation forced other mathematicians to publish
"a complete proof."   
On a personal note i should add i am in no way an interested party in the 'controversy',
just a devoted wikipedian.
Every indication is Perelman simply wants to work alone in peace.  He has refused prizes
in the past.   The Field's was worth $13,000 US.  The Millenium Prize of $1M US has yet to
be offered.   Perelman need make only one phone call and money would be wired to him immediately from any major university in exchange for writing his next theorem on their letterhead.
CeilingCrash 09:41, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion of New Yorker Article 

message: This article was automatically  assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 04:24, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating

message: Some of the content definitely seems full of POV. Some text is just not encyclopedic, and needs to be fixed. Also lacking sources for a significant part of the article. I've added the appropriate problem templates. Someone more knowledgeable about the subject and person is welcome to fix these problems and remove the templates. --Robin (talk) 17:01, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Since Yau has just been awarded a major prize, some activity is expected here. I have copy edited much of the recent additions, and will return to see how it is getting on. Charles Matthews (talk) 19:36, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV and sources 

message: I have removed this entire section and placed it here, because its tone is not appropriate for Wikipedia. Charles Matthews (talk) 16:43, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Hagiographic tone

message: The author contains "Work on these conjectures were taken from the solution of the Poincaré conjecture by Perelman" which does not make sense to me. Was work on these conjectures _used_ by Perelman in his (more recent) proof?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.151.103.9 (talk) 17:48, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I've cut that out. Charles Matthews (talk) 21:22, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Small wording issue 

message: I deleted the Birman reference at Manifold Destiny for reasons explained at Talk:Manifold Destiny#Birman.  I will leave it to someone else to delete it here if there is consensus.  Tkuvho (talk) 13:29, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:BLP notes that "BLP applies to all material about living persons anywhere on Wikipedia".  Thus, this talk page is the appropriate venue for discussing material on Yau.  Tkuvho (talk) 11:03, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  birman 

message: The article mentions S.T. Yau's rebuttal to the New Yorker article, but the specific allegations in the New Yorker (e.g. the cartoon of Yau trying to take the Fields Medal away from Perelman) are never mentioned. The serious ethical questions raised by ST Yau's conduct cannot simply be ignored.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Senex101 (talk • contribs) 22:14, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poincare conjecture controversy 

message: Substituted at 06:00, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 8 external links on Shing-Tung Yau. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101229180532/http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_carty to http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_carty
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110707024814/http://news.nuc.edu.cn/News/20090618230651.html to http://news.nuc.edu.cn/News/20090618230651.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110723150159/http://news.hustonline.net/Html/2006-1-15/27055.shtml to http://news.hustonline.net/Html/2006-1-15/27055.shtml
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110721181451/http://www.news.zju.edu.cn/news.php?id=4311 to http://www.news.zju.edu.cn/news.php?id=4311
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090701040436/http://sec.ncu.edu.tw/degree/index.html to http://sec.ncu.edu.tw/degree/index.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20040125124608/http://cms.zju.edu.cn/files/cutalk.ppt to http://cms.zju.edu.cn/files/cutalk.ppt
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080307001326/http://sciencedude.freedomblogging.com/2008/03/03/uci-courts-emperor-of-math-with-25-million-professorship/ to http://sciencedude.freedomblogging.com/2008/03/03/uci-courts-emperor-of-math-with-25-million-professorship/
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081029015038/http://pamq.henu.edu.cn/add/Yau/index.html to http://pamq.henu.edu.cn/add/Yau/index.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 00:39, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: After looking into this further, it seems Yau was actually stateless from 1978 to 1990, which period includes both his first notable work and the Fields Award for it. Prior to this, he was not a Chinese citizen, but rather a Hong Kongese citizen, as his family moved to Hong Kong when he was an infant. Therefore, "Chinese-born" doesn't meet the relevancy test, because he was not at all notable as an infant with Chinese citizenship. Which makes the phrase a forbidden indication of ethnicity in the lead. Certainly there is no reason to suggest he was a Chinese national. The nationality should either be Hong Kongese or American, since he was a US resident while he was stateless. Basically, his relevant nationalities were Hong Kongese and American. Skyerise (talk) 20:18, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: There was literally no such thing as Hong Kong citizenship (cf British nationality law and Hong Kong); he was a Hong Kong permanent resident. As he said himself,  — MarkH21talk 20:29, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Except that for the purposes of the lead we use country of nationality or permanent residency. So from 1978 to 1990, he had only permanent residency in the US, did the work at American universities, and at the time of being awarded the Fields Medal, US-residency was the only legal status he held. We follow WP guidelines for the lead sentence, not the subject's own opinions. So I revise my suggestion and propose we just use "American". The place of birth is clearly visible in the infobox and thus there is no need to call it out using a phrase which is ambiguous as to whether it is referring to ethnicity or nationality. It's complicated enough that it needs a more complete explanation than merely adding a hyphenated phrase to the lead sentence. Skyerise (talk) 20:37, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, that seems the most reasonable of the possible options here. More details can be mentioned in the lead after the first sentence. — MarkH21talk 20:42, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's work the wording out here and then implement it tomorrow or the next day to give other editors a chance to participate. Skyerise (talk) 20:43, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

text: Ok, looks like you did it while I was responding. No problem. I added his move to the US in 1969, otherwise one is left wondering why he's an American mathematician. Skyerise (talk) 20:49, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recommendation: remove nationality and include detailed explanation instead 

message: This article needs cleanup. In the publications section, article titles are italicized and not quoted; they should be unitalicized and quoted; and journal names should be italicized and also spelled out, for example, changing Amer. J. Math. to American Journal of Mathematics. Book titles should be in italics. —Anomalocaris (talk) 08:21, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup required 

message: (I'm new to wikipedia editing so please excuse general ignorance on how this works.) In the right-side box, both children of Shing-Tung Yau are listed using the same English spelling of their family name. In reality at least one uses "Chiu" instead of "Yau" (ref https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/fashion/weddings/22HSHIEH.html). Is there a reason, editorial or privacy-wise, to use the same spelling of family names for family members? 73.89.186.149 (talk) 18:41, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling of children's names 

message: The first sentence of the article describes him as a professor at Harvard. The second sentence says he retired from Harvard in 2022. Clearly these are contradictory assertions, so something needs to be modified. 2601:152:980:F3D0:E97D:58A:C156:3A39 (talk) 01:20, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Current affiliation