P:
Whose spirit and whose reason now draws near?
I sense an uneasy tremor in the air.
I sit unmoving, ringed by depths of night,
and hear a measured voice invade my heart,
appear before me, question, and inquire…
S:
You called? You thirst for numbers’ burning fire?
As others taste the fruits of ruling might,
they trade the spirit of their youthful freedom
for chains of galleys, harsh and bound to oars,
and waste the hymn of hope their fathers sang!
P:
It is as so — I dream of countless proofs!
Perhaps this dialogue is but a dream,
a fleeting instant in the mind’s deep sleep.
If not, then see what now disturbs my thought:
my reason multiplies in ranks of signs,
in structure seeks a three-dimensional rise,
and marvels at the many forms of space!
I’ll show you — this is how the current flows:
Poincaré* — the foundation of the world.
All night my mind is darkened by this burden,
I glimpse the symbols of calculation’s path,
and still I seek the key to resolution…
S:
Do not be hasty in this pact of yours.
There is a road from passion and revolt —
through me, and through life-giving sleep,
through shaken hands and whispered terms that say:
Whoever grasps the answer of his dream
shall cast away the gilded hand of fame;
the deserter finds but silence and the grave,
while others gain a lesson, food for mind…
P:
So let it be! My lot is cast in truth.
For knowledge’ glory and the faith of ages,
my soul abides within The Temple of Solomon’s
and with it Poincaré — an icon, never burned.
Grigori Perelman — Russian mathematician,
symbol of pure devotion to knowledge,
intellectual honesty, and the universality of mathematics
(solved the Poincaré conjecture).
Shedim — a spirit in the Tanakh
Poincaré conjecture (1904) — the greatest problem of 20th-century mathematics