Perelman declines $1m prize

bigbadwolf

bigbadwolf

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Completely off topic but Perelman is one of my heroes. In the British Daily Mail:

A Russian awarded $1million (£666,000) for solving one of the most intractable problems in mathematics said yesterday that he does not want the money.

Said to be the world's cleverest man, Dr Grigory Perelman, 44, lives as a recluse in a bare cockroach-infested flat in St Petersburg. He said through the closed door: 'I have all I want.'

Neighbour Vera Petrovna said: 'I was once in his flat and I was astounded. He only has a table, a stool and a bed with a dirty mattress which was left by previous owners - alcoholics who sold the flat to him.

'We are trying to get rid of cockroaches in our block, but they hide in his flat.'
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I thought this was all news. "Grisha" decided against this long time ago.
 
atreides said:
I remember when this was solved back in '03. My calc prof at the time came to class all jumpy and excited
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*Shrug* -- I don't understand any of it. As an undergrad doing a project on Morse theory, I used Morse functions to classify compact 2-manifolds (which can also be done with elementary techniques of algebraic topology). But this math is orders of magnitude more difficult. Just to be able to understand the technical problems behind the Poincare conjecture would mean one is a mathematician of intimidating power.
 
alain said:
I thought this was all news. "Grisha" decided against this long time ago.
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The last time in 2006 he rejected the Fields award. This is his the the latest thing he doesn't want. Maybe he is right: if he starts travel the world and accept various prizes he will stop concentrating on Math.
 
bet he could concentrate on math just as well if he lived without roaches and on a more comfortable bed.

I consider what he is doing self-destructive. He will probably die younger than he should, thereby limiting his contribution (which is already great) to mathematics.
 
Eugene Krel said:
bet he could concentrate on math just as well if he lived without roaches and on a more comfortable bed.

I consider what he is doing self-destructive. He will probably die younger than he should, thereby limiting his contribution (which is already great) to mathematics.
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He already stopped working on Mathematics.
As of the spring of 2003, Perelman no longer worked at the Steklov Institute.<SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-telegraph_4-1>[5]</SUP> His friends are said to have stated that he currently finds mathematics a painful topic to discuss; some even say that he has abandoned mathematics entirely.<SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-19>[20]</SUP> According to a 2006 interview, Perelman is currently jobless, living with his mother in Saint Petersburg.
<SUP></SUP>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman
 
elliot said:
He already stopped working on Mathematics.
As of the spring of 2003, Perelman no longer worked at the Steklov Institute.<SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-telegraph_4-1>[5]</SUP> His friends are said to have stated that he currently finds mathematics a painful topic to discuss; some even say that he has abandoned mathematics entirely.<SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-19>[20]</SUP> According to a 2006 interview, Perelman is currently jobless, living with his mother in Saint Petersburg.
<SUP></SUP>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman
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incredible...this individual can probably land a position at any math department, anywhere in the world. Is this a waste of talent or what?
 
I don't know whether he will accept the money or not. But he will never become part of the Western insititutional academic structure. His personality type wouldn't allow it. There are mathematicians like Michael Atiyah who are okay with being part of the status quo, part of the academic power structure, getting knighthoods, being directors of prestigious institutes, giving public talks -- in short, being celebrities and power figures to the extent an academic can be one. Perelman is a different sort, a lone wolf, the kind of outsider depicted in some of the novels of Hermann Hesse. Grothendieck was another such.
 
Hah I immediately thought of Kafka when I read this. He's one of the roaches, man!!
 
Perelman refuses to talk to the journalists camped outside his home. One who managed to reach him on his mobile was told: "You are disturbing me. I am picking mushrooms." The handful of neighbours who have seen him paint a picture of a scruffily dressed, unworldly eccentric. "He always wears the same tatty coat and trousers. He never cuts his nails or beard. When he walks he simply stares at the ground, rather than looking from side to side," one told a Moscow newspaper.

"He has rather strange moral principles. He feels tiny improper things very strongly," says Sergei Kisliakov, director of St Petersburg's Steklov Mathematics Institute, where the maths prodigy once worked as a researcher.

According to Kisliakov, Perelman quit the world of mathematics in disgust four years ago. His decision to spurn the Fields Medal may have been driven by a sense that his fellow mathematicians were not worthy to award it. "He severed all contact with the community, and wanted to find a job unrelated to maths," Kisliakov says. "I don't know whether he succeeded in that."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/23/grigory-perelman-rejects-1m-dollars
 

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