Slashdot Mirror
Perelman Urged To Accept $1m Prize
krou writes "The Warm Home charity in St. Petersburg, Grigory Perelman's home-town, has urged the math genius and recluse to accept the $1m Millennium Prize for solving the Poincaré conjecture, and donate it to charities. Perelman has refused to accept the award, telling one reporter through the closed door of his flat, 'I have all I want,' and another who managed to call him on his mobile, 'You are disturbing me. I am picking mushrooms.'"
Patron saint of basement dwellers everywhere.
Maybe leave the guy alone like he wants?
Is a total badass, he sets the standard for life.
Maybe try his facebook.
They don't make recluses like they used to.
Now I know how he figured it out at least. He went out, picked magic mushrooms, ate them and let the universe tell him the answer. No wonder he doesn't want the prize, it should be given to the great mushroom spirits.
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
He probably wants nothing more than being left alone. It's ironic that he doesn't seem to grasp that his eccentric behavior makes that even more difficult to achieve.
Attitudes make the difference between Space and Time: we want to MAX our temporal, and MIN our spatial extension.
Is a badass and sets the standard got life.
This latest snub follows his refusal in 2006 to collect the maths equivalent of an Oscar, the Fields Medal.
Its sad that the Fields medal is being compared to the Oscars - don't get me wrong, the Oscars are high honors in their fields - but comparing the lifetime of dedication scientists and mathematicians put into their work to the winner of 'Best miniskirt on hot actress in a running scene' doesn't seem right.
...can never understand/quantify what a genius wants.
Seriously man, take the million. Why is it that some feel if a tool is used to accomplish something ( in this case a computer to generate the proof ), then it wasn't "truly" accomplished? Math itself can almost be considered a "tool", albeit a mental one. I mean, what? Does this guy never use a pencil or chalk or pocket calculator, or own a digital watch!?...actually, when I think about the kind of person that turns down a million dollars, especially for simply being considered really smart, maybe he doesn't...
One of Russia's most senior politicians, Federation Council Chairman Sergei Mironov, has appealed for Dr Perelman to be left in peace to make up his own mind. He suggested that it was "not very decent to look into other people's pockets and count other people's money", Russia's Interfax news agency reports.
Me thinks someone needs to look at the politician's bank account and count how much he has ;)
From reading the brief summary, it seems that the guy is fully satisfied with a quiet, still life.
Not seeking attention and being at peace with yourself is something far too underestimated in todays egocentric world.
OTOH, the money could help a few less fortunate souls.
He's rejecting it on principled grounds. Regardless of what you think about those principles, he simply can't do this just for short term charity.
When he rejected the Field's medal, he simply said to the effect of, "If I take the money, I'd be obligated to correct the wrongs I see, otherwise I'd be a hypocrite. I don't want to be the one making that crusade, so I have to reject the money." (Remember the scene in Thank You For Not Smoking?) It's a simple, logical response. He may be a recluse and all, but there's nothing strange about his refusal to take the money.
Beetle B.
People who win prestigious awards often become "revisionists" a few years down the road.
Can you prove that? Your $1M is waiting ...
Refusing a $1 million prize will, I suspect, generate more, of the attention he doesn't want.
The journalists camped outside his home and calling his cell phone don't give a crap about some obscure piece of mathematics - they care about the weirdo who is turning down a fortune.
If he's jobless and living with his family, the least the foundation could do is contact his family and ask if they'd like the money for rent, food, etc. They're essentially paying for his work and even if he doesn't want the prize, they could give it to his family quietly so he can continue to do his work without someone having to worry about rent.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Quit bothering the guy already.
He's sensible enough to know that if he accepts, people will want him to give speeches, attend talks, and will generally waste his time. Feynman once pointed out that winning a Nobel Prize meant that he heard from many people he really didn't want to talk to. Feynman sometimes gave talks under a pseudonym, so that only the people really interested in the subject matter would show up.
especially charities
Disturb him some more and he might never submit another of his solutions to the world.
and another who managed to call him on his mobile, 'You are disturbing me. I am picking mushrooms.'
Just check the weather in St.Petersburg, Russia. It is still too cold there for any mushrooms to grow. So much for journalist's integrity.
Will: Oh, come on! What? Why is it always this? I mean, I fuckin' owe it to myself to do this or that. What if I don't want to?
Chuckie: No. No, no no no. Fuck you, you don't owe it to yourself man, you owe it to me. Cuz tomorrow I'm gonna wake up and I'll be 50, and I'll still be doin' this shit. And that's all right. That's fine. I mean, you're sittin' on a winnin' lottery ticket. And you're too much of a pussy to cash it in, and that's bullshit. 'Cause I'd do fuckin' anything to have what you got. So would any of these fuckin' guys. It'd be an insult to us if you're still here in 20 years. Hangin' around here is a fuckin' waste of your time.
<b> mine.
Mo' problems.
I think Perelman is not so much a weirdo, but an aesthetic artist of sorts--he's been hurt by the fact that humans have tried to monetize something he considers to be beautiful...as if you could place a price on Shakespeare or a price-tag on Emily Dickinsons' poems.
If you are out there, you sir, are my hero.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
He seems a nice but geeky guy. He loves maths, but doesn't want some prize he never applied for. Good for him. Of course there are plenty that would love to leech off him, 'charity' or not, which is all the more reason not to set himself up as a target by accepting. It will be interesting to see what Grigory comes up with next.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Here's my theory. He's a genius, a madman and a recluse, as well as everything else people say about him plus one other note: a mushroom farmer. 1$ million probably isn't even worth his time to open the door. "I have all I want" pretty much sums it up. Take your paltry 1$ million and donate it to an appropriate charity. If you really want a minute of his precious time you'll probably have to raise the figure by a couple orders of magnitude.
Very simple.. after x amount of time, the award defaults to a charity. Perelman (or any other winner) doesn't want to pick it? The Millennium Prize board picks it. Done. Now live him alone.
I'll do good things with it. Honestly. :-)
you will be haunted
He must not be married. If I turned down a mil, my wife would kill me, dig me back up, kill me again, film it all, and sell the film rights to recoup it.
Table-ized A.I.
OK, so he wants to be left alone and people won't leave him alone because of the money.
He should accept the prize, pay the associated taxes, take the remaining money to a different city, buy one or two small but valuable things, and destroy them in public. All gone, problem over.
i just know it
Table-ized A.I.
He turned down the Fields Medal award/cash in 2006, the cash award for the Fields Medal is quite small ($15000 or so)
The Millenium Prize is somewhat different ($1,000,000 for each one of 7 difficult maths problems solved) and his award for solving one of the problems has been granted this year (2010).
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
That's the thing that would really bug me about suddenly coming in to a heap of money I didn't really earn (i'm not saying this guy didn't earn the million, but that appears to be his opinion). You'd find out more about the people around you than you probably ever wanted to know.
And i'm sure there are exceptions, but giving people lots of money that they don't really feel that they've earned probably isn't going to make them happy in the long run.
You know what happens to people in Russia that suddenly come into money... many disappear.
Isn't he in MORE danger by not accepting the money? Once he has it and gives it away, he can not get it back, so criminals have nothing to extort from him. But as long as he has the ability to collect and doesn't, he's a prime target: "listen, stupid, collect the cash and give it to us, or we'll hurt you and your family".
Based on what people are saying wrt to receiving a large sum in Russia, the origin of the phrase "white elephant" comes to mind.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
should take this guy's money on the next season of WhiteCollar.
But seriously, how hard can it be for some impostor to assume his identity (if only for a little while) and claim the money -- either the white hat move of laundering it and setting up a charity, or the more normal take-it-and-run move? With him being so reclusive, I can only imagine there's not a whole lot of recent photos...
He owes you nothing.
This guy is a game changer and is ridiculing the entire field.
He solved the Poincare conjecture, go ask Andrew Wiles if he is forgotten for some work he managed a over a decade ago.
He illustrates PERFECTLY the difference between intelligence and wisdom. He's only got one. *shrug*
Step 1: Solve ridiculously hard math problem
Step 2: Reject 1m reward
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Profit!
> If integrity were the norm, the situation would be quite different. Wouldn't you agree?
You are disturbing me. I am picking mushrooms.
He is the jesus of geekyness, he is the saviour of nerdism - strip down nerd !
Well he was picking mushrooms, mh.. these have to be "special" mushrooms.
IANAP (I am not a psychiatrist), but he sounds like someone who is managing schizophrenia.
Or he might just prefer his own company and not be concerned about appearance.
Considering that Perelman has attracted far more attention by refusing the Fields Medal and Millennium Prize than if he had quietly accepted them, and that he certainly should have know that would be the case, perhaps he is not the humble saint that everyone here is making him out to be. Commence downvoting.
I'd be happy to form the charity foundation for leaving Perelman the fuck alone if he wants to give me the million bucks. Then he could refer anyone bugging him to my foundation whenever they bug him. Actually, he's welcome to do that anyway. For a million bucks, I'd be willing to poke intruders in the eye and spew random obscenities at them, though!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I noticed that the 1st reaction of most people was "wtf man just take the cash it's too much money to turn away" "think of all the good you can do" etc... but for many people this was also followed by the far more important 2nd reaction "OK - this can make sense if you think of it THIS way".
I think the real reason he rejected it might be far more simple than we make it to be, but the questioning of his motives by thousands of people is probably what is really interesting here.
If 1% of the people who hear of this story lose interest in amassing vast piles of cash, I think he has done a far greater thing than just solving what was fundamentally a complex puzzle with possibly no solution, he has given mankind back a piece of his dignity.
This bit is more about our personal dissatisfaction with our lives, as the readers, having to do things we don't like for money. It's more about a dissatisfaction with the economic system and less about this mathematician, or ex-mathematician. This dissatisfaction leads us to react to any declination of money with shock. The real key to freedom is living with very little and very humbly such that we "work" less and live more enjoyably, where "work" is here defined as any activity done more for money and less for personal enjoyment.
Even Richard M. Stallman himself has suggested this:
"I live like a student, basically. And I like that, because it means that money is not telling me what to do."
-- Richard M. Stallman
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fsfs/rms-essays.pdf
Pg. 164
There is no further need to discuss this. I have accepted the prize on Perelman's behalf. I am confident that some day Perelman himself will complete his mushroom picking and return my call. In the mean time, I will put the money to good use. And please don't reach out to me, I'm currently busy choosing the paint color for my Porsche.
Ah, never mind, you're probably not smart enough to take the money.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
I used to lock myself in the bathroom when I wanted to "pick my mushroom", but my sister was a lot more presistent than this reporter...
Let this man pick his mushrooms in peace. He may be our best bet at finding the question to the answer, which we all know is 42. Or maybe he'll come up with a proof for the Riemann Hypothesis whilst wandering about his mothers yard. Seriously, it's in everyone's best interest to back the hell off.
I think that freeing up brain power from mundane tasks like money, socializing and gossip provides some serious spare capacity that can be used to accomplish things that may seen amazing for "normal" people.
While I never accomplished anything as great as solving Poincaré conjecture, I completely sympathize with Perelman's attitude!
It's for communist's party. It was written that they asked him to accept the price and donate everything to the party as they saw 'true communist's' spirit in him or something.. Remember that everything's being taken under control in R..
How many of people could solve the problem that he did? I guess not any.
Well that mean we simply can't think at the same level as he does, so its futile to interpret his decisions.
Leave him alone. A man of his intellect would know what is best for him, better than any of ordinary mortals.
In Soviet Russia, the prize gets you.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
What the comity could do is take the million and invest it at say 3%. Create a new price called the Perelman price and give the interests away to the winner every 5 years.
aspergers?
Perelman is an artist. What he did, he did not do for fame or riches.
Understand that he did not publish his proof in a 'scientific' paper, he simply placed it on-line for others to see, like a beautiful photograph or a painting or a piece of music for others to enjoy. He did not do full calculations in it, it was about 60 pages, the full calculations were done separately later by others, it took an additional 280 pages. From this, understand, the man has created art and once he had the actual proof, he needed no calculations to finish all the trivialities.
Math is not about trivialities of computation of the known, it is an art form of deducing, finding new approaches, new patterns of ideas. Ideas are more important than the concrete implementations because implementations take energy away from enjoying the ideas, the old and the new.
Math is free, it is also Free. Millions are not needed to enjoy it. Millions, however, create distractions in various forms. Of-course Perelman could use the money, his life is extremely ascetic, but he could take the money if it did not entail a number of problems with it.
At least one problem cannot be overcome: taking this cash from an institution that is associated with the 'mathematicians', who do not view math as an art form, but as means to make money. This means degradation of the principles, of the reasons to do the real Math Art in the first place. What is the purpose of the Poincare conjecture? Nobody cares. Maybe sometime in the future there will be a use for it, but as it is, for Poincare, for Perelman, for the artists in the field, this is just a beautiful pattern.
The utilitarians among us will look for the uses, the Mathematicians do not care about the uses, they like the form that they have invented, like the string of patterns that it took to make the form, they like the shape, the dynamics, the boundaries, the infinities. These things are pretty in ways that can only be understood when you look at it by yourself and see how it is done and that it could be done this other way or maybe it could not be done in any other possible way and how things combine and disconnect and intersect and loop around.
Perelman is an actual Mathematician Artist, but that is why he does not see himself as a genius, as many call him, because they don't even understand the first thing about what he is looking at, so because it is so complicated and unknown and totally outside of their world and the reasons for it are not clear at all, they think it takes a genius to do this. He thinks it was a neat problem that he found a beautiful pattern to as a solution, he thinks genius is something else completely.
He is being insulted by everybody at this point, I think that's his view.
You can't handle the truth.
Does Perelman not taking the money scare you?
Does he offend you?
Does he entice a violent reaction in you?
Do you hate it, when someone sticks out of the crowd not out of a desire to be more 'cool looking' but simply because he does not need the crowd?
Take the money and give it to charity, you self-important Shit
- why don't you go and find him and beat him into submission to your own standards, that will hopefully satisfy your primordial craving to make sure nobody is different and whoever is different they are destroyed, so that the coherency of the group is in balance yet again?
You can't handle the truth.
1m means one metre. 1M should be used to refer to 1 million (mega). Slashdot, get your units straight.
Well, I read about his life and habits and achievements, then I read your post again.
I'd say my suggestion is the more likely explanation for your comment.
And it says an awful lot about your own personality that this is what you think.
We judge people by our own nature.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
He solved the conjecture, his name will be in math books for the rest of eternity, and that is prize enough for him.
I think you're either misunderstanding him, or replacing his wants by your own.
I think it's more like this: he solved the conjecture, and that is prize enough for him.
It may be a good life for him, and that's all he thinks he needs. But that may not be so true for the people who are providing for his needs.
No, I don't think he is providing for his needs (he doesn't look capable of doing it) - I think his mother and/or sister are/is.
So if it were up to me, I'd actually use the money to provide a monthly stipend to his mother and sister (for as long as Perelman continues to be supported by them).
Since he doesn't want the money, I think it's fair to give it to the ones who supported him, since without them he might not have survived to solve the problem.
IMO giving a monthly amount is better than a lump sum. Since it is more likely that Perelman would benefit in the long term.
I think it's also a good idea to give the mom and sister a one time sum of money as a gift - on top of that monthly amount.
Too many people here are romanticizing and glorifying this guy based on pure conjecture. I suppose it's especially easy to glorify a man you'll never have the chance to learn about, since he'll never, ever get in front of a camera to talk about himself.
He's clearly not a product of this corrupt society. Leave him alone FFS!
I think while not exactly politically correct, the parent's got an interesting point of view. This guy's probably gotten much more publicity by not accepting the medal and the money.
And a $1m goes a long way. I too would have given at least a part of it to charity. Then again, all I have to do is solve some little maths puzzle and I can do whatever I want with the money. Except maybe declining to accept it...
St Petersburg's Summer/Autumn are warm enough to incubate more than a few mushrooms. It's not exactly Siberia.
you had me at #!
And understands the reality of the situation we all live in. Whereas you may have all sorts of bizarre misapprehensions and assumptions about your reality.
Deleted
Leave Perelmen alone!
He is not available to accept this $1m, so I accept it on his behalf.
I think he should hold out until they raise the offer to $5 million. THEN, turn it down. Bwa-ha-ha. That will get the trolls in a lather.
$1m (1*10^-3) wouldn't be much of a prize and I'm not sure how you would collect it since it is only a tenth of a cent. The lowest denomination piece of US currency (the penny) is worth ten times that amount.
$1M (1*10^6) would be a nice prize though.
Would be to deposit the money in a trust and have the trustee silently monitor this guys life. If he ever gets sick or ever experiences misfortune (we all get old), he would then be authorized to step in and anonymously help him with whatever was needed. That way, he gains the benefit of the money he won while maintaining the purity of the lifestyle he desires.
Accepting the money would be giving legitimacy to those offering it, encouraging the commercialization of mathematics he as I understand it hates.
And if that makes him an "antisocial douchebag" you'll have to invent a new word for those offering the prize, after all they aren't donating that money and much more money either.
Yes, exactly, that is exactly how it happened.
Perelman receives a call on his 'mobile' phone, answers it and when he is asked in English (he does, speak the language, he taught in the US for a little while) and when asked the question he dictates the answer letter by letter: YOUR disturbing me.....
You can't handle the truth.
In fact we owe him more then he owes us. He chooses to be paid in solitude.
Mathematical semantics troll for the win!
A little background to why he's been refusing the prize:
Annals of Mathematics
Manifold Destiny
A legendary problem and the battle over who solved it.
by Sylvia Nasar and David Gruber
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/08/28/060828fa_fact2
Chinese Mathematicians Prove Poincare Conjecture
http://science.slashdot.org/story/06/06/05/0440258/Chinese-Mathematicians-Prove-Poincare-Conjecture?art_pos=3
A million bucks will buy you a lot of mushrooms...
Don't let them fool you Grigory Perelman! Admiral Akbar knows best!
I know it's hard for some of the world to understand, but there are those of us in it that don't want fame, don't want to be in the public eye, don't care about money.
Dude did the challenge probably because it was a challenge. He didn't do it for fame, or money, he did it because he enjoyed doing it. He submitted what he did so it would help others. (I have no idea what the significant of what he did, i'm just guessing here).
So now he wants to be left alone, pick his mushrooms, take his lsd, smoke his weed, or whatever the fuck he enjoys doing.
oh ya, Get off his lawn!
Be seeing you...
Sigh... Another genius lost to Farmville
Wow, you are such an intensely considerate person to show this passionate concern for the possibility of Perelman's caretakers being burdened.
I'm not really a considerate person. It just seemed like an obvious solution to me.
It just like trying to give a champion horse 1 million dollars for being a top racehorse (or stud). What's the point? The horse is going to say: "Nay! You are disturbing me, I'm busy eating grass". Trying to convince the horse to accept it just irritates the horse and makes you look stupid.
1) They want to give Perelman the money.
2) Perelman being Perelman insists he doesn't need or want the money, or want to have anything to do with the whole thing.
3) Perelman is likely dependent on his mother/sister on many things (whether he realizes/admits it or not).
So one way to give Perelman the money is via the people who are taking care of him.
Of course if Perelman finds out he might take it rather badly, so it is best do it very discreetly. If that is not possible for whatever reason (e.g. can't hide the transaction enough), then don't give the prize at all.
After all, the whole point of _genuine_ giving is to benefit the receiver.
While Yau and company are setting an unethical example for Chinese students to follow, Dr. Perelman might be setting an example for Russian students who love their math and science to not go after money or fame. Math geniuses are often deeply thoughtful and sometimes very principled.
If just one other Russian student or mathematician solves another Millenium Prize-like Math problem, it will do wonders for the intellectual pride of a society going towards unbridled "free market" capitalism. Socialism and concern for everyone might still be alive in the hearts of many Russian citizens on account of the hardships they personally face in their lives.
Maybe he's busy working on more math that people can sort through when he's finished, and doesn't wish to suffer any interruptions.
He is odd, to say the least. Nothing wrong with being odd, but that is what he is, and from what I can tell, he doesn't care. If you are offended by the notion that others see him as odd/weird/strange, then the problem is yours and yours alone, because he doesn't seem to care. Perhaps you should do some navel gazing, because he has...and he has found mushrooms! (Sorry, couldn't resist)
...that a million dollars isn't exactly a lot of money these days, eh?
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
I dunno, if just solving it was prize enough for him, why would he have told anyone?
To share this newly discovered knowledge with the rest of humanity---for the good of others.
the money isn't free - he understands if he takes it, he's part of the perceived problem then he must work to fix the problem (else he wouldn't be him) - the work to fix the problem isn't worth 1mil to him
what i think he would REALLY like is for the money to be used for a foundation to try to correct this perceived problem - problem is not many people can understand the issue enough to go about trying to correct it
I applaud his decision and integrity - recall Newton had the same problem when dealing with people and it bittered him and probably LIMITED his creative thinking ability - what is the cost of that ??????
The story is recycled old news. There is no mushrooms at this time of year in Russia, especially near St. Petersburg.