World's cleverest man turns down $1million prize after solving one of mathematics' greatest puzzles





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.'

The prize was given by the U.S. Clay Mathematics Institute for solving the Poincare Conjecture, which baffled mathematicians for a century. Dr Perelman posted his solution on the internet.

Four years ago, the maths genius failed to turn up to receive his prestigious Fields Medal from the International Mathematical Union for solving the problem.

At the time he stated: 'I'm not interested in money or fame. I don't want to be on display like an animal in a zoo.

'I'm not a hero of mathematics. I'm not even that successful, that is why I don't want to have everybody looking at me.'

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.'

It was in 2002 that Perelman, then a researcher at the Steklov Institute of Mathematics in St. Petersburg, began posting papers online suggesting he had solved the Poincare Conjecture, one of seven major mathematical puzzles for which the Clay Institute is offering $1 million each.

Rigorous tests proved he was correct.

The topological conundrum essentially states that any three-dimensional space without holes in it is equivalent to a stretched sphere.

The puzzle was more than 100 years old when Perelman solved it - and could help determine the shape of the universe.

After 2003 Perelman gave up his job at the Steklov Institute. Friends have been reported as saying he has resigned from mathematics altogether - finding the subject too painful to discuss.


Daily Mail

in b4 slowpork

how some people can cope with numbers...

not so clever after all...

It is once said the genius is bordered to insanity... This guy is a living roof of this saying!

there is much more to the story. granted, this guy is an eccentric genius, but he also did it to protest against the academic community for its obsession with award, publication and glory.

there is great controversy in that, while he solved the problem, credit was initially given to a chinese group of academics who did a better job publishing in journals and public relations.

thus to him, the journey of solving the problem is reward.

Somehow, i find this guy pretty commendable. Like the way he stress importance of solving a problem instead of the reward gained from solving a problem.

a publicity stunt to further immune his image as the humble cleverest man on earth. i would rather stay in a mediocre house with no cockroaches than to have his intelligence.

True..true..but even if a person is trying to prove his humility or simplicity, a million bucks is all too tempting. If I won the prize and didn't care about the money, I would have taken that money and donated it to charity. If.

This post has been edited by Thinkingfox: Mar 26 2010, 04:58 AM

living like a hermit in relatively bad condition is not a sign of humbleness. it is a sign of apathy towards' his surroundings. i dont think it is a attention seeking stunt, but rather that he just dont care. he's so introverted (nerdy/geeky/whatever) that his internal mathematic thoughts are enough for him.

I thought the world smartest man was a Korean who has the highest IQ in the world
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Ung-yong

hahah... in movies and fiction, world's smartest people go around solving mysteries of the world and human psychology..

in real life, world's smartest people are scientists and mathematicians solving equations and building machines

This post has been edited by Alone: Mar 26 2010, 11:07 PM

Waiting for him to sort out the Navier-Stokes equations next

whats wrong with the navier-stokes equation? i thought it describes the behaviour of fluid in a flow well enough

Well for mathematicians, we tend to think of ODEs/PDEs in terms of:

Given a system of ODEs/PDEs, and a set of Initial/Boundary conditions, does a solution exist? If it exists, is this solution unique? Is it possible to characterise this solution in some way, e.g. is it differentiable, or is it a smooth (infinitely differentiable) solution?

Example: You may remember in engineering maths classes (assuming you did it) that some boundary value problems for some simple ODEs did not have a unique solution.

Back to the Navier-Stokes equation: The challenge (in the Clay Math prize) is, given the Navier-Stokes PDEs, and a set of quite general initial conditions, show that a smooth solution exists globally (not locally), or show otherwise, that no such solution exists.

Interestingly enough, Perelman's proof of the Poincare Conjecture also uses a PDE, the Ricci flow, in which he showed that the singularities of the Ricci flow were 'well behaved' and disappeared in a finite time, giving the 'answer' to Thurston's geometrisation conjecture, which then implies Poincare's conjecture. [I'm only describing approximately what he did here, this is as far as my understanding goes]

This post has been edited by bgeh: Mar 27 2010, 12:10 PM

humble...great

He is a modern image of a true genius

what did he do with the 1 million.

sorry mod, i didnt know the thread was moved.. because it was still in Phd shortcuts...

Adiputra cannot solve that math problem ?