M S Raghunathan joined the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai in 1960 and is presently a Professor of Eminence there..

I will now embark on explaining as best as I can to the non-mathematician what the Poincaré conjecture is all about.

Poincaré Conjecture

The Poincaré conjecture is a problem in topology, an area which, as I mentioned earlier, is essentially the creation of Poincaré. The topologist studies geometric objects looking for properties that remain unchanged when the object is moved, stretched, contracted, bent – when it is subjected to a very wide class of ‘transformations’ called ‘topological transformations’.

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Address for Correspondence
M S Raghunathan
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Homi Bhabha Road
Mumbai 400 005, India.