Russian recluse scientist rejects Field Medal -for solving the Poincare conjecture..what is your take on?

Question

this ? Grigory Perelman of St. Petersburg , Russia says he doesn't want to be seen as a "figurehead"; yet, his work may determine the shape of the universe -which man could not do for the past 100 years .Why would it not be meaningful to be acknowledged for success after years & years of hard work ? Could his government have played a role in his snub of the academic world ?

Correction : Field's Medal..( not Field )

I did not mean to imply that the Russians would be against Perelman accepting the award - on the contrary ; but that they might value his scientific contributions , fearing that if he leaves the country again-to accept the award-he may not return ..

Answer 1

Sounds like a personal quirk to me. Although Putin and his supporters are still very much inclined toward the hyper-authoritarian bureaucratic dictator approach, I do not think they would pressure someone like Perelman. They seem more focused on threats to their power like the oil magnate they jugged.

Slightly related topic, have you read Gorky Park, Polestar, and Havana Bay by Martin Cruz Smith? I find his writing truly excellent, and he gives a remarkable look into Russian character.

Answer 2

Well wether he accepted it or not he received the Fields medal! This is no less honor than receiving a Nobel in the mathematical community, and he will be in the books as the guy who solved Poincare's conjecture. After all the only thing he rejected was a piece of medal and a prize of about $13,500, and he is going to be known as the guy who rejected fields. Of course just because I don't understand his reasons for rejecting the prize does not mean he doesn't have any. After all he might really be under the impression that rejecting the Fields would ease the attention he will get.

On a different note though, it will be very interesting to see what he does with the Clay institute's one million dollar prize if he gets it. Theoretically he should but there are some technical points with the awarding of that prize. Can he turn down that much money? Will he donate the money to UNICEF? Will he distribute it to poor russian students as a scholarship?

Answer 3

It sounds like he wanted to solve the problem without all the hoopla. The goal was the solution and the way there. Also remember that he refused the prize, the money's still there. I suspect that the Field Medal people will hold on to it for him when he wants it.

Remember, his work is already acknowledged by his peers. That may be all that he wants; the money and fame becomes superfluous. Of course, he may be waiting since his proof is still undergoin peer review.

I really think that unless he's politically embarassing, the Russian government would have really wanted him to accept the award much like the American government would acknowledge a similar winner from this country (one hopes).

Answer 4

G'day Veda,

Thanks for your question.

My understanding is that he has withdrawn from mathematics. He seems to be a man who sticks to his beliefs no matter what. He resigned from his position as a lecturer and is living with his mother. Yet he refuses to accept million dollar prizes.

It appears that he had proven Thurston's geometrization conjecture. If so, this solves in the affirmative the famous Poincaré conjecture, which has been regarded for one hundred years as one of the most important (and most difficult) open problems in mathematics.

Perelman was awarded the Fields Medal,which is widely considered to be the top honor a mathematician can receive. However, he declined to accept the award or appear at the congress.

In May 2006, a committee of nine mathematicians voted to award Perelman a Fields Medal for his work on the Poincaré conjecture. The Fields Medal is the highest award in mathematics; two to four medals are awarded every four years.

Sir John Ball, president of the International Mathematical Union, approached Perelman in St. Petersburg in June 2006 to persuade him to accept the prize. After 10 hours of persuading over 2 days, he gave up. Two weeks later, Perelman summed up the conversation as: "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."

On August 22, 2006, Perelman was publicly offered the medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid, "for his contributions to geometry and his revolutionary insights into the analytical and geometric structure of the Ricci flow".He did not attend the ceremony, and declined to accept the medal.

He had previously turned down a prestigious prize from the European Mathematical Society, allegedly saying that he felt the prize committee was unqualified to assess his work, even positively.

Perelman is also due to receive a share of a Millennium Prize (probably to be shared with Hamilton). While he has not pursued formal publication in a peer-reviewed mathematics journal of his proof, as the rules for this prize require, many mathematicians feel that the scrutiny to which his eprints outlining his alleged proof have been subjected to exceeds the "proof-checking" implicit in a normal peer review. The Clay Mathematics Institute has explicitly stated that the governing board which awards the prizes may change the formal requirements, in which case Perelman would become eligible to receive a share of the prize. [citation needed] Perelman has stated that "I’m not going to decide whether to accept the prize until it is offered."

Perelman has stated that he is disappointed with mathematics' ethical standards, in particular of Yau's effort to downplay his role in the proof and up-play the work of Cao and Zhu. Speaking about Yau, he has said that "I can’t say I’m outraged. Other people do worse. Of course, there are many mathematicians who are more or less honest. But almost all of them are conformists. They are more or less honest, but they tolerate those who are not honest." He has also said that "It is not people who break ethical standards who are regarded as aliens. It is people like me who are isolated."

This, combined with the possibility of being awarded a Fields medal, led him to quit professional mathematics. He has said that "As long as I was not conspicuous, I had a choice. Either to make some ugly thing" (a fuss about the mathematics community's lack of integrity) "or, if I didn’t do this kind of thing, to be treated as a pet. Now, when I become a very conspicuous person, I cannot stay a pet and say nothing. That is why I had to quit.”

Professor Marcus du Sautoy of Oxford University has said that "He has sort of alienated himself from the mathematical 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."

I think that the Russian Government would love for a Russian to win such a significant award. He apparently had some dispute with the Steklov Institute. Perelman does not seem to be a man who would take much notice of the wishes of the Russian government.

I enclose some sources for your reference.

Regards

Answer 5

I think it's peculiar that he doesn't want the prize money, but I also understand that people who put in a lot of work on problems like that do it for the intellectual challenge, and not for the glory.

My family thinks he is insane for not taking the money. I doubt very much that he is insane, in light of his work ;) If I were in the same position, I believe I would take the money even if I didn't want it for myself; I would use it to fund scholarships or programs for mathematicians.

I did wonder if he didn't take the money because of his government, but I don't think I am looking at it the way you suggest. I don't know if he is snubbing the academic world, or snubbing his own government. What I decided, however, is that maybe he is making a statement about academia in general. There is a lot of money floating around out there for people in all fields if they can solve problems or make neato discoveries. For example, the companies that worked on the human genome project were really trying to get it done as soon as possible because being the first would be lucrative. I wonder if he is disdainful of equating knowledge for the sake of knowledge with something that can be rewarded with cash. Maybe he thinks that contributions to our collective human knowledge should not have a price put on them, and that the solutions to such problems should be sought purely because they exist, not because you can make a bunch of money if you manage to work out the solution.

As for recognition, he has that in spades whether he takes the prize or not. He solved something that has baffled theoretical mathematicians for a century. From now on, his name will be known in history for his work, and in another hundred years, people will still be reading about him and analyzing his work. The fact that he rejected the prize money will be seen as an interesting footnote to a very notable accomplishment.

Answer 6

Michael Behe I'm an atheist! It doesn't matter, you could name 1000 or more if you like. For every scientist who rejects evolution, there's thousands who accept it. And, just because it was brought up - Kent Hovind is NOT a scientist, not even in broad terms. He has a "Phd" earned by correspondence from a non-accredited university that operates out of a 2-room building in Colorado. This "university" only does religious degrees.

Answer 7

I was under the impression that the Russian government was not THAT intrusive into personal liberty these days as it once might have been.
The solution to this problem is also one of the seven Millennium problems which carries a $million prize. (See the Clay Math Institute web page.)

Answer 8

he'd like the money, he just doesn't want to go somewhere and talk to lotsa weird people there. I know most people aren't like that, but most poeple can't prove that theorem.

Russian government couldn't care less about fundamental math.

Answer 9

i don't think the russians would let him out of his cave.

Answer 10

i understand him
why you guys don't let him alone?
ok he doesn't want the money
it shows how materialistical we are