[7] In September 1986 Rourke and his graduate student, Eduardo Rêgo (later at University of Oporto), claimed to have solved the Poincaré Conjecture.
[8] Reaction by the topological community at the time was highly skeptical, and during a special seminar at University of California, Berkeley given by Rourke, a fatal error was found in the proof.
Rourke wrote the software and fully managed these publications until around 2005 when he cofounded Mathematical Sciences Publishers (with Rob Kirby) to take over the running.
For the past fifteen years he has collaborated with Robert MacKay, also of Warwick University, with papers on redshift, gamma-ray bursts and natural observer fields.
The main idea is that the principal objects in the universe form a spectrum unified by the presence of a massive or hypermassive black hole.
This is added to standard general relativity in the form of hypothesized "inertial drag fields" which carry the forces that realize Mach's principle.