田刚论文有错不改,这是大家都知道的。但很多人其实不知道,田刚也改过一回。
田迄今为止唯一的像样的工作是Kahler-Einstein度量。而就是在这个工作的文章中,有一个非常致命的错误。田的这个错误同行都知道,但慑于田的人品,谁也不愿意跟田直接说。
偏偏这个时候,田跟前Princeton数学系系主任项武忠透了口风,表示自己想去Princeton。项只好答应。到Princeton开会一说要请田过来,Princeton的faculty大多不同意,一个主要原因是田文章里的这个错误。项使了吃奶的劲也没用,于是只能告诉田事情难办。田绞尽脑汁,想了一个既把错误改过来又不丢面子的办法,写了一本书:Canonical metrics in Kahler geometry, Birkhauser Verlag, Basel, 2000.
书出来之后,项又在Princeton使了吃奶的劲,终于把田搞过去了。
按理说田到了Princeton应该放弃MIT的教职了,可他偏不。一直到现在还是脚踩两只船,对两边都要挟提高工资。
其实数学家的文章出错很常见,知道有错改了就行了。以丘成桐为例,该错的文章随便一查就有这么多:
Erratum: "Nonexistence of time-periodic solutions of the Dirac equation in an axisymmetric black hole geometry". Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 53 (2000), no. 9, 1201.
Correction to: "A nonlinear elliptic system for maps from Hermitian to Riemannian manifolds and rigidity theorems in Hermitian geometry" [Acta Math. 170 (1993), no. 2, 221--254; MR1226528 (94g:58053)]. Acta Math. 173 (1994), no. 2, 307.
A note on our previous paper: "On the existence of Hermitian-Yang-Mills connections in stable vector bundles" [Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 39 (1986), S257--S293; MR0861491 (88i:58154)]. Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 42 (1989), no. 5, 703--707.
Corrections to: "Compact group actions and the topology of manifolds with nonpositive curvature" [Topology 18 (1979), no. 4, 361--380; MR 81a:53044]. Topology 21 (1982), no. 4, 483.
Erratum: "Some function-theoretic properties of complete Riemannian manifold and their applications to geometry" [Indiana Univ. Math. J. 25 (1976), no. 7, 659--670; MR 54 #5502]. Indiana Univ. Math. J. 31 (1982), no. 4, 607.
Errata to the paper: "Complete K?hler manifolds with nonpositive curvature of faster than quadratic decay" [Ann. of Math. (2)105 (1977), no. 2, 225--264; MR 55 #10719]. Ann. of Math. (2) 109 (1979), no. 3, 621--623.
其他的大数学家该错的文章也有很多。但知错就改,丝毫不影响别人的尊重。但田从没写过一篇该错的文章。