Russian Mathematician Decision To Reject Prize Money Surprise All
July 2nd, 2010 - 8:26 pm ICT by Pen Men At Work
July 2, 2010 (Pen Men at Work): Grigory Perelman’s refusal to accept such a lump sum as $1 million hit the headlines of almost all esteemed dailies earlier this year.
A Russian genius in the field of mathematics, Perelman was awarded this prestigious prize by the Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Mass for solving the Poincare conjecture that deals with four and five-dimensional shapes.
Perelman’s decision not to accept the honor on Thursday put him in the public eye. Perelman’s decision did not come as a surprise to Jim Carlson, President of the institute. He said that Perelman had turned down other math prizes before.
Carlson added that Perelman had telephoned him last week and let him know his decision but gave no reason for doing so. Throwing light on this eye-popping news, the Interfax news agency stated that according to Perelman, the prize was unfair and unjust.
Perelman said that he considered the contribution made by Richard Hamilton, a Columbia University mathematician by solving the mathematical problem, was greater than his own.
Interfax quoted him saying, “To put it short, the main reason is my disagreement with the organized mathematical community. I don’t like their decisions. I consider them unjust.”
Jim Carlson said making use of the prize money will be the discretion of the institute officials. He added, “We have some ideas in mind and would take a hard look at the matter in order to use the prize money to facilitate research on mathematics.
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