In this talk I will survey a connection between two very challenging problems, one in physics and one in math. The physics problem involves quantitative understanding of confinement in a system with least amount of supersymmetry that has been studied so far and that has a wide range of applications, from semi-realistic string models to qualitatively new examples of gauge-gravity duality. Surprisingly, the rich physics of this system translates into incredibly rich mathematics of the only remaining unsolved case of the Poincare conjecture.
