The New Yorker has an interesting piece up about the characters involved in the Poincare Conjecture. I have to say, Grigori Perelman seems out of central casting for Simon Baron-Cohen. And the behavior of the Chinese mathematicians is remiscient of some of the problems pointed out by Richard Nisbett in The Geography of Thought in regards to the development of a science-for-science’s-sake culture in East Asian cultures.
