Russian refuses math's highest honor

[Astronuc]

Mathematician Declines Top Prize
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5686700
by David Kestenbaum

Morning Edition, August 22, 2006 · A reclusive Russian named Grigory Perelman has puzzled the world of mathematicians. On Tuesday, Perelman won a coveted Fields Medal, an award given every four years by the International Mathematical Union for exceptional achievement in math.

But Perelman didn't show up to claim the award, and has said he doesn't want it. He told a British newspaper last week, "I do not think anything that I say can be of the slightest public interest."

Perelman is credited with helping solve the Poincare Conjecture -- a famous math problem about the shapes of space that was first posed by Henri Poincare in 1904.

A separate $1-million dollar prize for solving the conjecture is still up in the air. A published proof must stand for two years before being eligible.

A COMPLETE PROOF OF THE POINCARÉ AND
GEOMETRIZATION CONJECTURES – APPLICATION OF THE
HAMILTON-PERELMAN THEORY OF THE RICCI FLOW
http://www.intlpress.com/AJM/p/2006/10_2/AJM-10-2-165-492.pdf
(save target as)

 

[selfAdjoint]

All the attention on Feynman by the public didn't come until "Surely You're Joking..." came out, and that was when he was already sick with the cancer that eventually killed him. And he didn't initiate the project that became that book, his friend and coauthor did. The people he worked with liked him: "Dirac, but this time human" was one appraisal.

 

[FrogPad]

A COMPLETE PROOF OF THE POINCARÉ AND
GEOMETRIZATION CONJECTURES – APPLICATION OF THE
HAMILTON-PERELMAN THEORY OF THE RICCI FLOW
http://www.intlpress.com/AJM/p/2006/10_2/AJM-10-2-165-492.pdf
(save target as)

That was an easy read

 

[GCT]

Perelman declines the Fields Medal

"He has sort of alienated himself from the maths community. He has become disillusioned with mathematics, which is quite sad. He's not interested in money. The big prize for him is proving his theorem."


Professor Marcus du Sautoy of Oxford University


Hey, if one can provide such a vast prosocial contribution, within the confines of a room, obsessed with the task of such an exploration, if your mind is all that you need for such an adventure, if his genius suffices for such a lifestyle...let him be!


"According to a recent interview, Perelman is currently jobless, living with his mother in St Petersburg, and subsisting on her modest pension."


Then again, ~ $14,000 doesn't seem so bad, neither does the prestige "Nobel Prize in Mathematics" which basically guarantees a stable future career, green pasteurs and all, constant supply of "milk and honey." A financial dream come true for a mathematician. You've spent a good part of your life solving a grand scale puzzle, why not establish the life work affirmatively, why trouble your mother?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman


Has any individual ever declined the Nobel Prize?

 

[moose]

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=129497

EDIT: BTW, it's a LOT more money than that when you include the clay institute's prize for figuring this out.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

hehe some people are obsessed with money some aren't believe it or not

 

[J77]

Rather sad if it's true.

Not really.

I think it's rather cool of him not to want the attention.

 

[Evo]

Not really.

I think it's rather cool of him not to want the attention.

Sad that he has withdrawn from mathematics.

 

[J77]

Sad that he has withdrawn from mathematics.

Yeah - there's some great quotes on the wiki page tho'

"He proposed to me three alternatives: accept and come; accept and don’t come, and we will send you the medal later; third, I don’t accept the prize. From the very beginning, I told him I have chosen the third one." He went on to say that the prize "was completely irrelevant for me. Everybody understood that if the proof is correct then no other recognition is needed."

Those Russians

 

[Mk]

Did you say he proved the Poincaré Conjecture? Wasn't that one of the millenium problems? Surely he did not refuse the million dollars!

 

[Evo]

Did you say he proved the Poincaré Conjecture? Wasn't that one of the millenium problems? Surely he did not refuse the million dollars!

He's also refused the million the last I heard.

 

[GCT]

It seems that he's throwing some kind of a fit to me, he's actually getting more attention then he would have if he would have just graciously accepted the Fields medal. Personally, I don't see the need to create all of this commotion, however, it seems that from his perspective that there are serious problems with the mathematical hierarchy which he wants no part of. But if could just get over this aspect and received the prize for a highly respectable life endeavor, establish his career future, and put the money to good use...he would have escaped the mortal burdens that most of us bear each day of our lives. It's a chance to establish a peaceable lifestyle, the fact that he refused this reflects that he wants something more, and that he is perhaps under some kind of a delusion.

Perhaps he is somewhat socially inept, for some people for which this applies, unfortunately they don't have any talent either. There are few people in this world that are socially inept and can function magnificiently. He refers to himself as "isolated" yet his work speaks for itself. If I were him, I would take the money, establish a hobby (e.g. gardening, scuba diving, camping, bird watching...surely this guy has a hobby) and get myself a nice place to endeavor in the research, because with his credentials he can take up any kind of research he wants. Surely this guy has some kind of an interest in such things besides being cooped up in his mother's house, he has apparently closed many of the doors towards establishing himself in any sense, or perhaps he is trying to make some momentary statements. He wishes to bring up an issue to light and for him, this is more satisfying, whether it is logically or emotionally based with respect to his sanity.

 

[Astronuc]

The Fields Medal is widely viewed to be the top honor a mathematician can receive. It comes with a monetary award, which in 2006, was C$15,000 (US$13,400 or €10,550). The monetary award given to each medalist is much lower than the US$1.3 million or so given to a Nobel laureate when the prize is not shared.

The $1 million would be for the Clay prize - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_math_prize - which apparently Perelman is still ellgible. I read that there was some period (2 years) of verification or something like that for each Millenium problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poincaré_conjecture

"The Poincaré Conjecture 99 Years Later: A Progress Report" by John Milnor, February 2003
http://www.math.sunysb.edu/~jack/PREPRINTS/poiproof.pdf

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poincaré_conjecture#References

 

[shmoe]

Has any individual ever declined the Nobel Prize?

Yes,

Two winners have declined the Nobel Prize!

Jean-Paul Sartre, awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature, declined the prize because he had consistently declined all official honors.

Le Duc Tho, awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. They received the Prize for negotiating the Vietnam peace accord. Le Doc Tho said that he was not in a position to accept the Prize, giving as his reason the situation in Vietnam.

from http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/nobelprize_facts.html

4 more were forced to decline.



The Clay Prize has the following rule:

Before consideration, a proposed solution must be published in a refereed mathematics publication of worldwide repute (or such other form as the SAB shall determine qualifies), and it must also have general acceptance in the mathematics community two years after...

from http://www.claymath.org/millennium/Rules_etc/

ArXiv isn't refereed, but the Clay people pretty much have full discretion on what counts. They can also spread out the prize as they see fit, even giving heirs a portion of the award if a deceased mathematician has been deemed to provide an important enough contribution to the solution.

We asked Perelman whether, by refusing the Fields and withdrawing from his profession, he was eliminating any possibility of influencing the discipline. “I am not a politician!” he replied, angrily. Perelman would not say whether his objection to awards extended to the Clay Institute’s million-dollar prize. “I’m not going to decide whether to accept the prize until it is offered,” he said.

From http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060828fa_fact2 I haven't heard anything more recent.