Talk:James Harris Simons
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[edit] Opening Remarks
Welcome to the talk page for James Harris Simons.
Jim Simons is a unique individual -- a world-class scientist, a seemingly boundless money-maker (perhaps the most successful in history), and a philanthropist with very specific goals and agendas. He is private, guarded, even secretive. Most of the material in this article has been gleaned from the little that has been reported about him on the Internet. He rarely gives interviews.
I am in no way an authority on Simons, and wish to avoid giving that impression.
My decision to write the ariticle is based on the following: He merits a thorough, well-written encyclopedic entry, and none yet existed; he is an interesting subject; his place in history is still "in development"; and Simons presents some unique challenges to the writer.
One challenge is to write about the mathematical ideas and theories accurately. This aspect of the article will receive special focus, attention and research by me over time, and of course I hope those with expertise will lend a hand. My end goal is that the cognoscenti will find the portion of the article well-written and meaningful.
-- Paul Klenk, Kew Gardens, Queens, August 16, 2005
[edit] Bernstein
Regarding this statement: "This resulted in his proof of the Bernstein conjecture," I am unaware that Simons himself actually wrote a "proof" of the Bernstein conjecture. Is there anything to support this? The way it was worded before merely indicated that, as a result of his theory, the conjecture became proved. Your thoughts?
paul klenk talk 06:42, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
- My reference was [1]. This is not my area of speciality, but the paper claims that the result therein proves Bernstein's conjecture up through real dimension 8; in other words, the Bernstein conjecture is proved as a consequence of the more general results in this paper. The paper also mentions that there were previous results of Almgren that established the Bernstein conjecture in real dimension 5 (presumably in lower dimensions as well, but I don't know for sure about this point). Hope that helps. - Gauge 21:54, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
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- Also, Enrico Bombieri showed that Bernstein's conjecture is false for real dimension 9, so Simons' result was apparently one of the last steps in this program. See [3] - Gauge 22:17, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
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Gauge, thanks for your excellent research. I may have over-complicated my question, which is simple:
- Did Jim Simons himself deliberately publish a proof of the conjecture, in which he says, "Here, see what I wrote... This is my proof of the conjecture," or...
- Did his theory result in another person coming along, looking at his paper, and saying, "See here, Simons' work touches on matters which are related to the Bernstein conjecture; if you apply his work, you can actually now prove it!"
Does this make sense? It's a simple matter of wording. Either he "did" the proof, or his work was used by someone else to do it. It may sound nit-picky, but in such a matter we want to be clear, so our readers know what we are telling them. paul klenk talk 22:21, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
- In this sense, Simons himself realized that his work constituted a proof of the Bernstein conjecture — he says so right in the paper. The first possibility you mention above is the correct one. Hope that clears things up. - Gauge 05:22, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Unique streak
The section Unique Streak is unsourced, approaches libel, and should be removed. JFW | T@lk 12:36, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Earning in 2005
Traders Monthly says he earned $0.9-1.0 billion in 2005, while Institutional Investor says he earned $1.5 billion. Shawnc 01:03, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Birthdate
He's tagged as Category:1921_births, but the text says he received his bachelors in 1958 and then his Ph.D at age 23. That would mean he's a 1935 birth or later (probably more like 1938-40). What's correct?
