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Math genius Grigori Perelman explains why he turned down $1 million prize
- kloncks 15y agoThis guy is just awesome. His quote, I know how to control the universe. So tell me, why should I run for a million? actually gave me goosebumps. Not many people actually live by their principles like this. Good for him.
- Sandman 15y agoOf course, he could have taken the money and given it to charity...
- catechu 15y agoOr he could have pulled a Ludwig Wittgenstein and given it to the "already-corrupted" rich.
- shasta 15y agoRight, he could donate it to a cause that he feels strongly about. Perhaps an organization that would use the money to advance the state of mathematics. Morally, this seems like what he should have done: he should have taken the money, paid taxes on it, and then given it back to the AMA.
- helwr 15y agoI was actually laughing reading this (and about "walking on water") I suspect Perelman has a sense of humor of a pure mathematician and he made fun of the journalist and the press in subversive ways known only to Leningrad intelligentsia.
- catechu 15y agoHmm... The Wired article (linked within under "can control the universe") seemed to suggest that he solved the problem by "channeling Jesus"...which seems to misrepresent that he was talking about his childhood training, rather than how he actually solved the conjecture.
- gjm11 15y agoYup, the Wired article is pretty bad. And the Pravda article it links to, although it does give the correct version of what he said about Jesus walking on water, has some major craziness of its own in its last paragraph: "According to the newspaper, both Russian and foreign special services are showing interest in Perelman's discoveries. The scientist has learned some super-knowledge which helps realize creation. Special services need to know whether Perelman and his knowledge may pose a threat to humanity. With his knowledge he can fold the Universe into a spot and then unfold it again. Will mankind survive after this fantastic process?" Oy.
- petercooper 15y agothe genius refused the prize, claiming the knowledge gained to be worth more than the financial reward. It's a reason, but certainly a deeply personal one specific to him. Pragmatically, taking the money doesn't mean he loses the knowledge, even if the knowledge is "worth more" - it's just extra on top. I suspect the more mundane reason is that if you want to stay living in a working class Russian neighborhood, being known to have accepted $1m is going to make your life pretty tough.
- jpr 15y agoI guess you can be matematically genius while being economically retard.
- jpr 15y agoCould the downvoters please explain how it is not economically retarded to decline an offering of money for your work? I have a really difficult time understanding this.
- karolist 15y agoDownvoters here take more criteria when voting than just being right or wrong, logical or nonsensical. Same sentence expressed with different attitude would mean difference.
- pradocchia 15y agoYou seriously can't think of a rational reason why someone would turn down money for his work? Ok, here are a couple of suggestions in this case: 1. He dislikes what he perceives to be the corrupting effects of money and wants to guard against their influence in his life. 2. He thinks about pure math all day, and this makes him happy. Has solved for his basic needs. Does not want to worry about managing $1M. If and when he needs more money, he will deal w/ it then. Since he is a famous mathematician, it is reasonable to expect that others will help him out, if he asks. These are variations on theme, actually. He enjoys thinking about math. He doesn't need $1M to think about math. Ergo, he doesn't need $1M.
- jpr 15y agoI guess one can construct rational arguments for turning down money if one doesn't believe in capitalism or economics or money, but that doesn't make the act of turning down money economically non-rational.
- pradocchia 15y agoHis wealth-generating function does not take money as an input, beyond that which is required to sustain his physical body. He happily specializes in the production of theorems, and does not require financial rewards as an incentive. If he had a family to support, it might be a different matter.
- Maro 15y agoWhy not just take it and use it as insurance that he will always be able to spend his time doing math... This has nothing to do with principles. Suppose it's 1920 in Russia (or Germany) and you turn down $1M. You sure as hell could use that money 20 years later to bribe officials to get out of the country and flee to the US. He's young and living in Russia, a lot of shit could happen in the next 50 years. He should've just taken it, buy gold and bury it in his backyard.
- FrojoS 15y agoI totally agree. History is full of, in some way, very smart people who just happend to be powerless at the wrong place and the wrong time. But then again, maybe, time has changed and the comparison to 1920 Europe is not a valid one anymore. Actually, Perelman might be making the world a saver place by not worrying about his safety!
- Maro 15y agoTime will tell... About a year ago The American Interest had a special issue about Russia, where they said Russia's current territorial size is a historical minimum --- the author was implying this is likely to change through expansion in the future.
- FrojoS 15y agoTrue - you just managed to scare me: I live in Munich. Always better to live the lean lifestyle so you can always leave with your backpack ;-) Still, I'm more worried about other forms of repression in the future. Patriot Act or Telecommunications data retention (EU) have a huge potential for abuse and causing suffer. The problem here is, that you can't solve it by immigrating into a different country. It's more or less the same craziness, where ever you go on this planet.
- guard-of-terra 15y agoI guess he can still reclaim his $1M any time if he would state he is willing to. Why do it now?
- karolist 15y agoFunny how such stories turn up as just a day ago a different source was featured on HN. Especially when this is old information (by the measure of when it was released/happened, not if it was known by readers or not). I guess it could be a nice tactic: 1. monitor HN, FB, twitter for interest 2. quickly rehash and compile an article 3. ??? 4. profit!
- anatoly 15y agoThis interview is suspected of being fake. Russian bloggers who investigated this weren't able to find the person who allegedly interviewed Perelman. There are errors in the names of math departments, papers etc. that Perelman couldn't conceivably commit. Some of his statements contradict what's known about his attitudes. There's a detailed case built here (in Russian): http://josef-gotlib.livejournal.com/466777.html http://josef-gotlib.livejournal.com/466777.html A St. Petersburg mathematician and former colleague of Perelman, before he became a recluse, is convinced the interview is a load of made-up nonsense (in Russian): http://udod.livejournal.com/169316.html http://udod.livejournal.com/169316.html
- capstone 15y agoI really think that Joseph Gotlieb - your first link - is grasping at straws. For brevity's sake I will address his first objection even though I feel others are just as shaky. [Objection #1: According to the interview, Gregory Perelman bristled at being addressed as "Grisha" by the media (Gregory/Grisha being similar to Robert/Robbie in familiarity). This could not possibly be true because he signed his own emails as "Grisha".] This is a pretty big stretch. The Russian language defines 3 tiers of familiarity/address: a nickname for family/friends, a full first name for acquaintances of the same age, and a full first + patronymic name for everyone else. (This is similar to a French person being offended by an overly familiar "Tu" when a "Vous" is appropriate). Moreover, it is not uncommon anywhere to use a nickname in correspondence with friends and colleagues and a full name in more formal situations. The forum discussion - your second link - is nothing more than a reference to Richard Feynman's auto biographical anecdote about the Nobel prize, followed by a bit of general bitching about journalists. One poster casts doubt on how Perelman and the interviewer connected (seems perfectly plausible to me that a Russian-Israeli journalist would connect to a Russian-Jewish scientist through his mom, whom he lives with, via the St. Petersburg jewish community). It really doesn't prove or even suggest anything of importance. As far the claim that Russian bloggers couldn't track down the person who interviewed Perelman, well, I just spent a minute on google and found this: http://cursorinfo.co.il/news/novosti/2011/04/28/zatwornil/ http://cursorinfo.co.il/news/novosti/2011/04/28/zatwornil/. Apparently, the Israeli paper was able to find the interviewer... not particularly surprising given that he had moved to Israel in the 90's.
- FrojoS 15y agoI and most people here, I guess, would find the logic very appealing and accept to use the money as insurance or give it to charity. But then, possession and responsibility can be a burden and fear is the path to the dark side. Consider - what is happening to the Clay money now? I've no idea but I guess it will be spend on another price for another problem or some other useful purpose. So it will go to charity anyway. One problem less to think about for Perelman. There are only so many things you concentrate on and I'm happy to hear, that he will keep his focus on math!
- zoul 15y agoThere’s a very nice book about the Poincaré conjecture, going from the roots of geometry in Euclid’s Elements to Perelman’s proof: http://books.google.com/books?id=kM8fAQAAIAAJ http://books.google.com/books?id=kM8fAQAAIAAJ At least for me it hit the sweet spot between a rigorous math paper and a good story book.
- smilliken 15y agoThe article doesn't state the news very well-- this is in fact a very old story. The actual news is buried in somewhere in the 4th paragraph: that the proof has finally been peer-reviewed and confirmed .. but, even then, that news is from March 2010. (Of course, the more interesting story is the one in which Perelman refuses the prize). This proof is especially notable for being the first of the Millennium Problems to be solved. For those interested, here is the Clay Math announcement (the actual news) the article left out: http://www.claymath.org/poincare/millenniumPrizeFull.pdf http://www.claymath.org/poincare/millenniumPrizeFull.pdf (contains an overview of the Poincaré conjecture and a link to Perelman's proof).
- bitwize 15y agoAs described in Surely You're Joking, Dick Feynman wanted to refuse the Nobel for similar reasons: fame would interfere with his work. He eventually accepted it because refusing would cause more of a stink than accepting. But he wrote a few anecdotes about the trouble "that damn prize" caused him.
- irahul 15y ago> As described in Surely You're Joking, Dick Feynman So if Feynman didn't want the prize for valid or invalid reasons, he becomes a dick? Even if the reasons were invalid, how does it make him a dick - he didn't do anything untoward to anyone - he was just following his personal ideology.
- Sandman 15y agoI honestly can't tell if you're joking, trolling or you actually don't know that Feynman's first name is Richard (or, shorter, Dick). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick
- irahul 15y ago> I honestly can't tell if you're joking, trolling or you actually don't know that Feynman's first name is Richard (or, shorter, Dick). I knew his first name is Richard; didn't know Dick is diminutive for Richard.
- bitwize 15y ago"Dick" is short for Richard, as in Dick Clark. Feynman was known to use this as a personal nickname.
- irahul 15y agoI wasn't aware of this. My perception of your post was you think Richard Feynman's aversion to the prize and his reasons for the aversion were dickish and you are calling him a dick.
- Jun8 15y agoAnother reason he turned it down was his disgust with the math community, after the debacle of "Shing-Tung Yau to downplay Perelman's role in the proof and play up the work of Cao and Zhu". "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."
- seanc 15y agoThe most thorough accounting I've ever read of the story is in The New Yorker, here: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/08/28/060828fa_fact2 http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/08/28/060828fa_fact2 Read the article and draw your own conclusions, but it seemed to me that Perelman simply wanted nothing to do with other mathematicians. He seemed to think that accepting the Millenium Prize, the Fields Medal, or a professorship would mean that he would have to participate in a more traditional practice of mathematics, complete with politics and whatnot, and he had no interest in doing so. More specifically, the article discusses the efforts of Yau to examine Perelman's proof, with a view to finding a flaw, fixing it, and ultimately taking credit for the One True Correct Proof of Poincare's conjecture. Whether this is a fair characterization is beyond me, but I would say that Perelman is probably justified in his perception that had he joined mainstream mathematics he would have to spend time defending his ideas from other mathematicians, and I can understand why someone wouldn't want to do that. But a million bucks? I think I'd take the money.