

Math genius Grigori Perelman explains why he turned down $1 million prize - octopus
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/good-news/math-genius-grigori-perelman-explains-why-turned-down-214324650.html

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anatoly
This 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>

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>

~~~
capstone
I 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/>. Apparently, the
Israeli paper was able to find the interviewer... not particularly surprising
given that he had moved to Israel in the 90's.

~~~
anatoly
> 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.

Perelman signed his _papers_ "Grisha Perelman". That's about as formal an
occasion for a mathematician as it gets. The paper is the claim for posterity.
It's what the next generations of mathematicians will read. It's not
impossible to imagine a mathematician who'd sign his mathematical papers as
"Bob Green", but then be strongly offended by being so identified in the
media, but it's very, very unlikely.

Also, "Grisha" is no more a nickname than "Bob" or "Bill" (that is, they all
can be considered nicknames, but aren't usually what we mean by a nickname in
its more common sense). They're familiar forms. It's not unheard of for a
Russian scientist to adopt their familiar form as the preferential first name,
even in formal situations, in English-language cultures. E.g. Misha Verbitsky,
Sasha Razborov... you can easily google many more examples.

Obviously I disagree with you about the first link grasping at straws. In
particular, mekhmat vs matmekh alone is damning. This difference between the
names of the two most prestigious math departments in Moscow vs St. Petersburg
is legendary. It's next to impossible for an alumnus of mekhmat to refer to
his alma mater as matmekh or vice versa.

> Apparently, the Israeli paper was able to find the interviewer... not
> particularly surprising given that he had moved to Israel in the 90's.

They didn't find him in the sense that they weren't able to contact him, as
they explain; I didn't mean to claim that the name or the person were
nonexistent.

~~~
capstone
I don't know about this. My father is a scientist, and while he signs his
correspondence as Sasha, he publishes under Alexander. As for метмах vs.
матмех - it could easily be Perelman having a dyslexic moment, or the
journalist misquoting. All these "clues" are so nitpicky... not worth a
conspiracy theory IMHO.

You are right about nicknames though. I used it in a colloquial sense but the
correct term would be a familiar form.

------
petercooper
_the 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.

------
kloncks
This 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
Of course, he could have taken the money and given it to charity...

~~~
catechu
Or he could have pulled a Ludwig Wittgenstein and given it to the "already-
corrupted" rich.

~~~
ntoshev
What are you referring to?

~~~
BasDirks
LW pretty much gave all of his money (which was a lot), to his already rich
relatives.

------
seanc
The 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>

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.

------
zoul
There’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>

At least for me it hit the sweet spot between a rigorous math paper and a good
story book.

------
bitwize
As 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
> 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
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).
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick>

~~~
irahul
> 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.

------
FrojoS
I 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!

------
Maro
Why 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
I 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
Time 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
True - 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.

------
smilliken
The 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> (contains an
overview of the Poincaré conjecture and a link to Perelman's proof).

------
catechu
Hmm...

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
Yup, 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.

------
Jun8
Another 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."

------
jpr
I guess you can be matematically genius while being economically retard.

~~~
jpr
Could 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.

~~~
pradocchia
You 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
I 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.

~~~
zck
For him, marginal dollars have negative utility. This may be because of
morality -- he could consider the act of giving mathematics prizes
antithetical to promoting good math research; it may be because of his focus
-- he knows that he would have to _manage_ the money if he got it, which would
distract him from doing math; it may be because of fear -- there may be people
that would kidnap his family to get access to that money.

If you consider "economics" to deal only with maximizing money, it's
economically non-rational to decline this prize. If you consider "economics"
to deal with maximizing _utility_ , it could easily be rational to decline
this prize.

