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Jules-Henri Poincare was born on April 29, 1854 in the city of Nancy, France.
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Beginning in 1881, Poincare began to teach at Sorbonne in Paris, and this is where he would spend the rest of his illustrious career.
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If we stretch a rubber band around the surface of an apple, then we can shrink it down to a point by moving it slowly, without tearing it and without allowing it to leave the surface. On the other hand, if we imagine that the same rubber band has somehow been stretched in the appropriate direction around a doughnut, then there is no way of shrinking it to a point without breaking either the rubber band or the doughnut.
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We say the surface of the apple is "simply connected," but that the surface of the doughnut is not. Poincaré, almost a hundred years ago, knew that a two-dimensional sphere is essentially characterized by this property of simple connectivity, and asked the corresponding question for the three-dimensional sphere. Poincaré Conjecture. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.claymath.org/millennium-problems/poincaré-conjecture
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"A genius who throughout his life solved complex mathematical calculations in his head, and a writer gifted with an inimitable style, Poincaré rose to the challenge of interpreting the philosophy of science to scientists and non scientists alike. His lucid and welcoming prose made him the Carl Sagan of his time. " (Summary on book jacket)
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Henri Ponicare died in Paris at the age of 58
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In 2000 the Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) was formed to stimulate mathematical research by offering $1 million prizes for the solution of important problems in mathematics. One of the initial seven problems was the Poincare Conjecture.
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Grigori Perelman provided a solution for the Poincare conjecture which was one of the mathematics great unsolved problems
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