Genious Mathematician refuses highest Honor Medal for his Accomplishements
Grigory Perelman, a withdrawn Russian mathematician who solved a key piece in a century-old mystery known as the Poincaré conjecture, was one of four
mathematicians awarded the Fields Medal at the ceremonies held this week at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid. Dr. Perelman refused to
accept this highest honor, as he has many other honors before, and did not even attend the ceremonies. The Fields Medal, often described as mathematics’ equivalent to the Nobel Prize, is given every four years, and an assorted few can be awarded at once. Dr. Perelman, is recognized not only for his work on the Poincaré conjecture, among the most substantial unsolved math problems, but also for his refusals to accept previous mathematical prizes. Furthermore, Dr. Perelman has turned down job offers from Princeton, Stanford and other universities. The conjecture, devised by Henri Poincaré in 1904, primarily says that the only shape that has no holes and fits within a finite space is a sphere. That is the case indeed when looking at two-dimensional surfaces in the daily three-dimensional world, but the
conjecture says the same is valid for
three-dimensional surfaces embedded in four dimensions. Dr. Perelman solved a difficult problem that other mathematicians had encountered when trying to prove the conjecture, utilizing a technique called Ricci flow that smoothes out bumps in a surface and transforms it into a simpler form. Eventhough an affort was made to persuade Dr. Perelman to accept this medal, he declined politely. Despite Dr. Perelman’s refusal, he is still officially a Fields Medalist.
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