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Perelman declines 1M prize: "I have everything I want"
- dimitar 17y agoGood story, but in Russian. Most of the audience might want to read the original, from the Daily Mail, which is in English: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1259863/Worlds-cleverest-man-turns-1million-prize-solving-mathematics-greatest-puzzles.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1259863/Wo... Another article in English, from Pravda: http://english.pravda.ru/russia/kremlin/84114-0/ http://english.pravda.ru/russia/kremlin/84114-0/
- helwr 17y agoin Chrome there is a nice translate option at the top, the comments of russian readers are pretty interesting
- Torn 17y agoNeat feature, I didn't know Chrome could do that. One of the more amusing auto-translated russian comments: say, lives on a pension mom. In place of my mother I would beat his frying pan. But not on the head. http://www.gazeta.ru/science/2010/03/23_a_3341933.shtml?comment_id=353378&refresh=1269360729&lj2#comments http://www.gazeta.ru/science/2010/03/23_a_3341933.shtml?comm... I'm going to guess at 'what if his mother lives on a pension? If I were his mother I'd beat him with a frying pan, but not on the head'.
- sketerpot 17y agoThe problem with Chrome's translate feature is that it keeps claiming that random pages are in some language that they aren't in, like Afrikaans, and offering to "translate" them. It's a bit annoying.
- TeHCrAzY 17y agoI had some broken (junk, seemingly random bytes rendered to screen as text) responses coming from IIS yesterday, and ended up with some very confused users asking me "why is the page in arabic?". Turns out, Chrome was telling them it was in arabic, and offering to translate it.
- dschobel 17y agoSaid to be the world's cleverest man, Dr Grigory Perelman, 44, lives as a recluse... Leave it to the daily mail to add an extra layer of hyperbolic bullshit. As if it weren't a fascinating story already, he now has to be "the world's cleverest man".
- bruceboughton 17y ago"The topological conundrum essentially states that any three-dimensional space without holes in it is equivalent to a stretched sphere." I love how they throw that in as if any of their readers will understand it* * FYI, the Daily Mail is one of our tabloids, famous for claiming that just about anything causes cancer: http://thedailymailoncologicalontologyproject.wordpress.com/ http://thedailymailoncologicalontologyproject.wordpress.com/
- netcan 17y agoPossibly moving to the UK in a year. Tabloids are the thing I'm most looking forward to.
- pierrefar 17y agoI give you 1 week before you change your mind. I initially found them very amusing but now I cringe every time I pass a news stand or otherwise catch sight of the tabloid front pages.
- netcan 17y agoI've lived in Ireland before and I would get the British tabloids an armload at a time. Something about being able to point to one over coffee and say 'look at this.'
- eru 17y agoFrom where?
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- zackattack 17y agoLol. http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gazeta.ru%2Fscience%2F2010%2F03%2F23_a_3341933.shtml http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gaz...
- zackattack 17y agoWhoops. Here, have a widget javascript:location='http://translate.google.com/translate?u='+encodeURIComponent(location); Paste that as the location for a new bookmark, and save it to your toolbar for a handy bookmarklet. I'm enthused.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- raganwald 17y agoIt isn't like the money will vanish, presumably it will go to more work to further research in Mathematics.
- tlb 17y agoGood for him. Having money would disrupt his life and set back his work. I'm waiting to see what he comes up with next.
- cynicalkane 17y agoIt's strange that people allow their lives to be disrupted by money. It seems like if you won a million, you can continue living the life you have now plus $1 million in CDs or something. To me, the negative effect that windfall amounts of money have on a lot of people is the barest example of how people often function better under constraints. Living freely is hard.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- praptak 17y ago"It seems like if you won a million, you can continue living the life you have now plus $1 million in CDs or something." Maybe if nobody knows that you've got the million (not the case here.) Otherwise the money may draw unwanted attention - "friends" asking you to lend them some or even criminals trying to convince you to part with the money.
- iskander 17y agoThis is especially a problem in Russia, where having even modest sums can draw the attention of local goons. I don't think being a famous mathematician is any protection from having Grisha the neighborhood limb breaker show up at your door.
- rdtsc 17y agoI never thought of it that way. But that is certainly a interesting angle to it. He might be puting himself and his mom in danger if others thought he has a $1m. Anyone in Russia who has that kind of money also has body guards and private mansions with tall electrified fences.
- tsally 17y agoI wonder if his parents have everything they want, like a reasonable retirement.
- jrockway 17y agoIf his parents wanted that, they should have been geniuses solving million-dollar prizes. That said, I agree that a lot of good could be done with the money. He should take it and ensure that it does good.
- tsally 17y agoSeems your forgetting the part about where his parents provided him with a place to live, food, and security while he got the education that allowed him to win a million-dollar prize. Not to mention the fact that they probably paid for his tuition, textbooks, and anything else he needed to learn mathematics. According to Wikipedia: "his early mathematical education occurred at the Leningrad Secondary School #239, a specialized school with advanced mathematics and physics programs. In 1982 [16 years old], as a member of the USSR team competing in the International Mathematical Olympiad, an international competition for high school students, he won a gold medal, achieving a perfect score." You don't get to do all that as a kid without the monetary support of your parents. I wonder if Perelman's parents had forced him to work in a factory instead of enrolling him in advanced mathematics programs, would he have achieved the same results? Do the parents deserve a comfortable retirement for their efforts? I say yes. I say every parent that supports the education of their children does. It's just that most kids don't have a million dollars lying around that they can give to their parents. Personally I think it's unconscionable not to secure the financial stability of your family given the opportunity. If anything, just keep the money lying around for medical expenses and college tuition. Perelman should have used the money to support his parents and lay the groundwork for the educational success of his kids. I can't think of an ethical justification not to do so.
- impeachgod 17y agoThis is the Soviet Union - where public education is free, free, free, as long as you're getting good grades and staying out of trouble.
- alexandros 17y agoWhen we think back on Newton or Einstein, we don't say 'he won an Nobel and pocketed a cool million'. We remember them for their results, which changed the way humanity sees the world. Granted, if it was me I probably wouldn't have declined, but then, I wouldn't have found the proof either. In 40 years nobody will remember all this circus around medals, awards, and money, just his result, which is the way he wants it. Feynman also cursed the day he received the Nobel and wished these awards bodies were more discrete and privately gave an opportunity to decline without all the publicity circus. I hope he is secretly at work doing what he does best, away from all these distractions.
- shadowsun7 17y agoI get the feeling that Perelman's a purist, in every sense of the word. He gets the math done, and then he steps away and feels happy that he's contributed something to humanity. Maybe he's not as obstinate as we think he is. (Frying pan to the head notwithstanding)
- aresant 17y agoChoosing to live in squalor and denying an earned $1m prize suggests that Perelman is suffering from clinical depression. The sad part is he’s probably going to be written off as eccentric and never receive help that could change his life substantially from the better.
- scorpioxy 17y agoOr maybe he just isn't interested in money or fame. Don't be so rash in passing out judgment. I once asked a mathematician what he says he does when people ask him. He said that "I do math, teaching is my job, the way i make my living but what I do is math". Didn't quite expect that answer, and he's internationally known for his work too.
- aresant 17y ago"Or maybe he just isn't interested in money or fame." There's a big difference between not interested in money or fame, and living in a 1 bedroom apartment, sleeping on a dirty matress, and living with a roach infestation.
- scorpioxy 17y agoI see his choice comparable to the one often taken by start up founders when they realize that all they need is a computer and decide to be frugal and live off somebody's couch or work from their smelly garage. I completely understand his decision. To an intellectual, a lot of the things that you would consider necessary, aren't.
- aresant 17y agoYou are attempting to fit a square into a circle here. Working in a "smelly garage" or from a "friends couch" as a founder in the USA dreaming of success is Apples to Oranges vs. living in a roach motel, on a dirty mattress, turning away visitors from behind a closed door, in Russia, since 2003. One is the romantic prototype of an entrepreneur, one is an unimaginably harsh and depressing life from which this guy has completely denied himself sanctuary.
- piramida 17y agoThe thing he tries to avoid is extra attention to his persona. With all the media buzz, I feel sorry for him, tabloid "journalists" will keep distracting him for a while now. Let the man live his life the way he wants to; leave him alone. People should respect his decision however impossible it may be to comprehend for an average money-driven individual. Don't turn him into a lab rat for own amusement; don't visit that tabloids linked above.
- Rauchg 17y agoIf he understood how other social human beings behave, he'd realize this only brings extra attention to his persona.
- skarlath 17y agoIt's very similar to something Feynman said when he found he won the Nobel Prize. I can't find the quote specifically, but he essentially said "is there any way to turn it down?" But he recognized that he couldn't and it was easier to just accept it. But he bemoaned that forever afterwards he was no longer Richard Feynman, he was Richard Feynman Nobel Prize winner. That is all from his book "What do you care what other people think?"
- maximilian 17y agoI read that, when he gave technical talks away from Caltech, he would have to use a pseudonym, so that the room wasn't packed full of people wanting to see "Famous Nobel Prize winning Feynman" give a talk. This way only the appropriate people in the physics dept would come to see his latest results.
- mhartl 17y agoBoth this anecdote and the parent comment can be found in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman". (N.B. The quote marks are correct: the title itself is a quote.)
- herdrick 17y agoThat's an old but cool story. Here he is on the subway in Moscow: http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2007/06/15/perelman-in-a-subway/ http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2007/06/15/perelman-in-a-...
- helwr 17y agothe story is actually pretty recent, he was awarded the Millennium prize last Thur, the previous one he declined was back in 2006. but figuratively speaking this story goes back to Diogenes, so yes, it is old
- herdrick 17y agoAh, thank you. The Millennium prize people might have been confident they wouldn't have to pay out, eh?
- nearestneighbor 17y agoSt. Petersburg
- nearestneighbor 17y agoIt's safe to assume that Perelman could probably make as much every year or two (on Wall St. and elsewhere). So, cockroaches or not, he really doesn't need their money (all that much).
- dschobel 17y agoSure, he'd only have to trade 80 hours/week on wallstreet to get it. This case is exceptional because the $1M is no-strings attached.
- nearestneighbor 17y agoI don't think top mathematicians on Wall St. are literally trading.
- dschobel 17y agoTrading has nothing to do with it. The most notoriously stressful positions in finance are that of analyst and ibanker, neither of which entail any trading.
- nearestneighbor 17y agoI just realized that your comment was ambiguous.
- known 17y agoHad Perelman knew http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequence he wouldn't have declined the prize.
- roundsquare 17y agoA while ago I read through a book called "The Millennium Problems[1]. According to the author, its unlikely that anyone driven by the money would be the ones solving the problem. If you really want money, and you are good enough to solve these problems, there are much easier ways to make a million. Of course, that doesn't mean that whoever solves P vs NP wouldn't take the million, but looking at it this way, Perelman's decision doesn't surprise me too much. [1] http://books.google.com/books?id=Ofw6ru8cHOUC&dq=the+millenium+problems&source=bn&hl=en&ei=X-KpS9rHJ4PCrAfqrfmdAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-thumbnail&resnum=5&ved=0CB4Q6wEwBA http://books.google.com/books?id=Ofw6ru8cHOUC&dq=the+mil... P.S. I wouldn't recommend this book. It attempts to explain the problems but I didn't feel that it did a good job. Reading the P vs NP section (the only problem on the list I understand) I was depressed at how poorly it described the problem.