Most people don’t realize how political math can be: In 2006 The New Yorker accused you of taking credit from the Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman after he proved the famed Poincaré conjecture. What happened there?

In a process as intricate and daunting as proving the Poincaré conjecture, it is understandable that Perelman released his manuscript with several key steps merely sketched or outlined. One of my students tried to fill in some of the details, and I supported that. I also said that my friend Richard Hamilton, a geometer at Columbia University, laid much of the groundwork that Perelman ultimately relied on to construct his proof. For these things The New Yorker tried to accuse me of stealing credit, but that is ridiculous. What I think of as the Hamilton-Perelman proof of the Poincaré conjecture is a great triumph for mathematics, and I fully support the award of the Fields Medal to Perelman. Hamilton deserved the Fields Medal too, but he was ineligible because of the age restriction [you must be under 40]. To suggest that my position has ever been any different is completely untrue.