Mathematics possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture. —Bertrand Russell
HUA HIN, Thailand — Today is the 45th birthday of Russia’s Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman, a person who is not a business tycoon, celebrity or powerful politician, but whom we should admire for his genius and contribution to expanding the frontiers of human knowledge.
Math Genius Who Turned Down US$1 Million
Perelman is perhaps the world’s greatest mathematician alive today. Thanks to Philippine STAR reader and Princeton/MIT-trained Dr. Jose Kho Hay Ting for emailing me Perelman’s feats. Like the great, 20th-century math whiz Albert Einstein, Perelman is Jewish and his father Yakob has even migrated back to their ancestral homeland of Israel.
Grigori Perelman has made important contributions to Riemannian geometry and geometric topology. He proved Thurston’s geometrization conjecture, which solved the giant mathematical puzzle called the “Poincaré conjecture,” posed in 1904.
To me, more fascinating than his being a math whiz is that Perelman stunned the world when he declined to accept the most prestigious international awards, such as the 2006 Fields Medal and the 2010 Clay Millenium Prize. A passion for learning and excellence was more meaningful for him than mundane awards. Perelman said, “I am not interested in money or fame.”
On August 22, 2006, Perelman was publicly offered the medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid “for his contributions to geometry and his revolutionary insights into the analytical and geometric structure of the Ricci flow.”
He did not attend the ceremony, however, and turned down the prestigious medal, making him the first person to decline this prize. On June 8, 2010, he also did not attend the Millenium Prize ceremony in his honor at the Institut Océanographique in Paris, France, to accept his US$1 million prize.
* * *
Lucio Tan Dreamt of Being A Scientist, Andrew Tan & Villar Were Top Accountants
Not a few of the Philippines’ business leaders are very proficient in mathematics and accounting, such as “rags-to-riches” taipan and Alliance Global Group, Inc. founder Andrew Tan, who is a cum laude graduate of accounting from University of the East (UE), as well as self-made realty billionaire Senator Manny Villar, who used to work at the meritocracy of SGV Group after earning his degrees from the University of the Philippines in Diliman.
Philippine Airlines and Philippine National Bank boss Lucio C. Tan told this writer that if his family could only afford it when he was a kid, he would have wanted to study to become a scientist instead of going into business. He is good at math and endlessly fascinated with technology, apart from his passion for Chinese history and classical literature.
Taipan John Gokongwei Jr. is also very good at math, despite having been a high school dropout when his father died. One hobby of Gokongwei’s for many years is reading and studying the annual reports of the best companies worldwide.
James Go’s 2 MIT Degrees; Wash Sycip Summa Grad From UST
Unknown to most people, Gokongwei’s youngest brother, JG Summit Holdings, Inc. chairman and CEO James Go is also brilliant at math, having graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with two degrees: a bachelor degree and master of science degree from the same world-famous school that has produced many Nobel Prize winners. Gokongwei’s son Lance Gokongwei also excelled in math and earned two degrees from the University of Pennsylvania — a bachelor of science in economics and bachelor of science in applied science, with summa cum laude honors.
Advanced 90th birthday (on June 30) to business genius Washington SyCip, the visionary founder of the SGV Group, adviser of taipans like Lucio Tan and John Gokongwei Jr. and founder of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM). He is like the Lee Kuan Yew of Asian business, a tireless workaholic, disciplined, and a vigorous champion of meritocracy and excellence.
A summa cum laude accounting graduate of the University of Santo Tomas (UST) and also later Columbia University, SyCip is a son of prewar Chinese Chamber of Commerce president and Chinabank cofounder Albino SyCip. The elder SyCip was in Washington, DC to help the ethnic Chinese minority appeal to the US Supreme Court for the reversal of the discriminatory Bookeeping Act enacted by politicos, a legal struggle led by then Chinese Chamber of Commerce president and Chinabank founder Dee C. Chuan. The elder SyCip was in Washington when his son was born 90 years ago, so he decided to name him Washington.
Wash SyCip’s legendary accounting firm has numerous distinguished alumni who have since served the government as top leaders, like Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, Gloria Tan Climaco and many others. One of the biggest corporate titans and a breathtaking wheeler-dealer of the moment is the brilliant Marcos-era Trade & Industry minister and now Alphaland CEO Roberto “Bobby” Ongpin. His only real rivals in mega-deals are Manny V. Pangilinan of PLDT and Smart, and Ramon Ang of San Miguel, both of whom are also very adept at math.
A direct descendant of the 19th-century Philippine Revolution financier and hardware tycoon Roman Tanbensiang Ongpin, Ateneo business administration cum laude and Harvard MBA graduate Bobby Ongpin joined SGV & Co. in 1964 and was chairman and managing partner of the firm from 1970 to 1979. He once recounted to me his amazing experiment of managing the foreign exchange black market or so-called “Binondo Central Bank” in the early 1980s, to prevent the collapse of the Philippine economy then beset by the catastrophic crisis of confidence after the 1983 assassination of Senator Ninoy Aquino.
Aside from managing the controlling bloc in San Miguel Corp., Ongpin’s group has interests in real-estate development (Alphaland Corp.), mining (Atok Big Wedge Co. Inc.), information technology and gaming (Philweb Corp.) and oil refining (Petron Corp., managed by his talented nephew Eric O. Recto).
The Ongpin group is also planning to buy control of the Philippine Bank of Communications (PBCom), reportedly against other possible bidders BDO of Henry Sy, Security Bank led by Frederick Dy and East West Bank of the Gotianun family. Will John Gokongwei Jr. of Robinsons Bank also bid for PBCom? What about the Philippine National Bank of Lucio Tan, which will soon be merging with Allied Bank?
* * *
George Soros to give P2 Billion to AIM?
Scoop! Sources in Makati’s banking circles told this writer that Hungarian Jewish Holocaust survivor, billionaire and world-famous finance whiz George Soros is planning to donate a huge sum to AIM and also invest in it for it to strengthen itself further in this era of globalization.
A graduate of the prestigious London School of Economics, Soros is one of the world’s legendary math geniuses in finance as well as a pro-democracy activist worldwide.
If George Soros’ entering to help AIM pushes through, it will be a big win-win situation for AIM as well as for the Philippines’ image as ideal for foreign investors. Soros has donated immensely to support scientists and schools, including 420 million euros to the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary.
Will our politicians consider amending the constitution to allow foreign philanthropists or investors to help out in our educational institutions as well as other key sectors in this era of globalization? What can government and the private sector do to modernize the whole Philippine educational system to world-class standards?
Can our politicians — most of whom are lawyers and many of whom seem shockingly inept at even the most basic mathematics — reform our educational system by promoting more math, science and English-language proficiency, especially since English is already part of Philippine culture and not owned by the British or Americans?
* * *
Feedback welcome at willsoonflourish@gmail.com or follow WilsonLeeFlores on Twitter or Facebook.