[It is official:] Russian math genius ignores $1 million Millennium Prize | Hacker News Reader

[It is official:] Russian math genius ignores $1 million Millennium Prize

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They probably sent him an email with the subject, "You've won a million dollars!" and it was ignored as spam.

Maybe I can adopt it as a spam scam idea. I can target individuals in academia and hump their wet dreams of greatness.

Vernor Vinge wrote a story kinda like that: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v407/n6805/full/407679a...

Thats Funny :)

Why is this at -4? You heartless bastards!

Hacker News tends to want only comments that contribute to the conversation. Mere statement that you laughed does not count.

It's completely harmless and it seems like a nice way to acknowledgement that the comment was appreciated. How is that possibly a bad thing? -4 means that 5 people decided that that comment was offensive to them. The only thing offensive about it is the lack of an apostrophe. Like, the person is just being nice. That they're at -4 for acknowledging their appreciation for another user's joke (5 people disliked this?!), and I'm only at 0 for an obviously negative, off-topic message where I call everyone heartless bastards (only 1 person disliked this) is absurd.

No, minus four means that five people decided that the comment did not contribute. To indicate that you appreciate a post on this site, you upvote the post.

I think to a point, a lot of us want to believe that Perelman is truly noble and and dedicated to the purity of mathematics. It would serve as a great fable of the modern age. A man challenging the tripe and political aspects of society we have created.

If you've read "Perfect Rigor", the book by Masha Gessen, it shows as far as I can tell that some of that is true. He doesn't believe in profiting from mathematics. At the same time, some of the stories make you wonder what he wants from others:

When he was 17 he taught at a summer math camp for gifted math kids like himself, he would give 15 year-olds problems that were 2x the normal even for them without consideration to their actual skills and then attempt to deprive them of lunch if they couldn't finish half of it.

"A year later, when [the author] asked Rukshin [Perelman's childhood mentor] to get a copy of Morgan and Tian's new book to Perelman, Rukshin demurred; the last time he had tried to pass on a gift from a foreign admirer, he said, Perelman had lobbed the gift-a classical-music CD-at Rukshin's head."

Nevertheless, his brilliance at math is undeniable. I just don't think his reasoning is particularly honorable from what I've read of it.

Note: I realize the excerpts might be a bit tangential, but I thought it was of some value to mention some of his odd behavior.

And like you said, he was 17 at the time.

From the limited amount I've read about this, he seems to believe that academic mathematics is corrupt and unethical. Basically, he objects to the whole machinery that would award him this prize.

That and he feels slighted by other researchers, especially Shing-Tung Yau.

Edit: If you're interested about Yau, here's a NYT article (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/science/17yau.html?_r=1)

"But even his admirers say he has a political side. “As Shiing-Shen Chern’s successor as emperor of Chinese mathematics,” Deane Yang, a professor of mathematics at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn and an old family friend, wrote in a letter to The New Yorker, “Yau has an outsized ego and great ambition, and has done things that dismay his peers.” But, Dr. Yang said, Dr. Yau has been a major force for good in mathematics and in China, a prodigious teacher who has trained 39 Ph.D.’s."

In my experience the best revenge is usually to live a happy life. If it was me, I'd use the $1M to do that. Even assuming he's completely non-materialistic, I find it hard to imagine there's nothing Perelman could spend the money on that would make him even a little happier.

Even assuming he's completely non-materialistic, I find it hard to imagine there's nothing Perelman could spend the money on that would make him even a little happier

What you're saying makes perfect sense in the context of our (modern Western) attitude to money, but Perelman has always struck me as a throwback to an older conception of these things. He might well regard money -- or at least money obtained in this way -- as intrinsically incompatible with pure intellectual life. If accepting the money would entail losing something that he values more, his refusal is not so strange.

It's also the case that Russian intellectuals are -- or at least used to be -- biased more in this direction than Western ones. Which reminds me of one of the greatest and funniest things ever said on the subject, Saltykov-Shchedrin on the difference between Russia and the West: "A Westerner sells his soul to the devil; a Russian just gives his soul to the devil."

To a mathematician, some things are far more important than mere money. Accepting tribute money from an organisation you believed to be fundamentally corrupt would be to become one of the very people you despise.

To a mathematician, some things are far more important than mere money.

I know, my PhD is in pure mathematics - I've seen up-close that mathematicians can be an odd bunch ;)

Using the money to fund some kind of an alternative to the organisation he believes is corrupt, surely wouldn't make him corrupt though, just to take one example?

In some ways, he's "spending" his million dollars to make a public statement about his view of the organization.

Had he just accepted the prize, there would probably be little mention of it in the main stream media.

That's very true - good point. I wonder what it would actually cost to make this much of a public statement if he spent the money directly that way - maybe it is comparable.

Oh, probably more. How much does human interest cost? This has captured quite a few people's attention, especially considering it's catching people not in mathematics.

How much does human interest cost?

I couldn't resist thinking about this a bit more. Something comparable would be firefox's double-page New York Times ad, which apparently cost about $200k (http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/007103.html) and certainly reached a lot of non-mathematicians.

Even though Perelman's action has generated quite a bit of press attention, my gut feeling is he could have paid for even more attention if he chose to use the prize money to raise awareness directly.

That said, if he really wanted to get maximum exposure, he could continue to ignore the prize for almost a year, but accept it at the last minute and then spend it all on ads telling the world how corrupt academic mathematics is ;)

Just because someone is a genius mathematician doesn't mean he is good at numbers.

A point that non-mathematicians will never understand! I used to always correct people by saying, "No, you mean arithmetic," until I realized how hopelessly pedantic it was.

Firefox though went from a fairly large amount of people to a fair amount larger amount of people. I'll bet this guy went from 4-digit people knowing (of) him to 7 or more digits.

I'd think generating interest from something minute would be harder than from something a lot of people have at least heard of.

Then he should accept the money, and turn around and use it to fund a foundation that upholds the principles he respects.

Perhaps he does not want to run a fund, either?

It's not about whether spending the money on something would make him happier or not. It's about whether taking the money would commit him to a social group, or structure, or organization he disagrees with.

Or maybe he just has other things he wants to be doing that don't require that money.

For me that's called being consistent as a man and it's the type of choice that separates men from peons.

So, let's not put a man on trial for refusing a gift. What's wrong with that? It didn't harm anybody I think...

Go Grigory Perelman!

Taking it would likely change him in undesirable ways for a net negative effect on happiness.

So basically, he objects to the discipline of mathematics itself. The field is inherently social, because without a sharing of ideas, and in some cases without direct collaboration, progress isn't possible. That said, I have no problem with his choice, but it would be nice if he would at least release a good explanation of what he feels is wrong with "the establishment." I suspect he would be able to discover more mathematical truth if he would at least be somewhat in touch with the mathematics community.

The "sharing" that goes on in most scientific fields is not of the friendly kind. The race for publications (-> money, fame) is the root cause. Ethical values are a facade.

Contrast RMS who had no qualms whatsoever about accepting $1M from the MacArthur foundation and another $1M from the Takeda foundation. In fact, judging from his rhetoric on the economics of software, he seems to think that this is perfectly normal!

I wonder whether there is more discussion as a result of him refusing to turn up - perhaps he is more famous because of it.

Not sure whether he likes the attention or if it fits his political agenda.

I'm guessing this fellow is just a little different, and very very stubborn. That might also be the reason he solved the problem.

and what would tesla have accomplished if he had just taken money seriously, rather than spending years digging ditches (literally)? If someone offers you a million dollars and you don't take it, you're acting totally insane (unless you already have several million laying about).

But have you thought about this: Why it is that no one with the mentality you are presenting here was able to solve that millenium problem? Maybe it was solvable only by someone you would call "insane".

Same with Tesla - if he had taken money seriously, it's probable that he would accomplish less, because everyone has only a limited capacity for things one can "take seriously". He just took other things seriously (and was quite successfull with those).

(This reminds me somewhat of the meta-narrative in Logicomix, about the relationship between madness and mathematicians. Many of the great Logicians did not end well... or _go_ well, for that matter.)

>Why it is that no one with the mentality you are presenting here was able to solve that millenium problem?

I obviously can't answer why this one guy got there first. Plenty of people with a sane attitude about money have solved significant problems, Edison for example.

>it's probable that he would accomplish less

There's no reason to believe this. There's a wide spectrum of how much energy you have to put into things. It's certainly true that there are only so many hours in a day, but why does handling the unpleasant necessities of life (proper nutrition, exercise, basic money management) sanely have to be a net loss? You don't have to be a dollar hungry millionaire in the making, just use basic common sense. Einstein for example lived a sane and competent life. So did Niels Bohr and Stephen Hawking and numerous other people that made enormous contributions.

I remember in Perfect Rigor it said that this man lives on dark russian bread and yogurt. And while entertaining this life on minimal consumption he actually manages to have a good deal of savings in his bank.

I doubt that he has to live in poverty. I bet that he has chosen to live this way.

If he was truly insane, he never would have told anyone he solved the problem. Lucky for us.

Makes you wonder how many problems are solved by people who never tell anybody.

Or announce they have a solution (and they do) but don't extrapolate. Think Fermat.

I think a lot of people are missing the point. He has already decided that he has enough money. That's why he retired, because he saved up enough money to live the rest of his life.

It's a very russian mentality (I speak as someone who's parents moved from the USSR a year before I was born).

Like many contented men, he probably just wants to go on doing what he's doing. He rightly intuits that there is no way he can be associated with this prize and have that happen, even if he immediately gave it all away. He's probably annoyed by the whole affair.

It's not just contented men, though. Very depressed people will also resist any sort of change to their routine since they assume it will only make matters worse.

I can't imagine what it feels like to spend years trying to prove something like the Poincare conjecture, then succeeding, then trying to find something else to do. I don't get the impression that Perelman is a happy man, though.

Sylvia Nasar wrote a nice article about the Conjecture:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/08/28/060828fa_fact2

'Nevertheless, Perelman told Ball that he had no intention of accepting [the Fields Medal]. “I refuse,” he said simply.'

I can't help but admire the guy.

Wrong title. He ignores the award ceremony. Still has one year to collect the money.

On a tangential subject, if it's proven then why keep calling it the Poincare conjecture? It's now a theorem.

Likely for the same reason Fermat's Last Theorem was called a theorem for hundreds of years before it was proved. My guess is cultural inertia.

Ah, that's different: Fermat's Last Theorem was called a theorem because Fermat claimed to have proved it. Taking him at his word, it's been a theorem since 1637.

The Poincare-Perelman theorem. That's how it's probably going to be called.

Probably not. In mathematics you can't call things after the people who have invented it, or solved it. (At least that's what my professors said when they had to explain why stuff has strange names. Often the guy who popularizes something gets the name, but fights it.)

Probably the only man in the world who doesn't care about money (and not just saying that)

Or the only one you've heard of?

I've heard many people say the same thing, but I'm not sure I would necessarily believe them without proof. Him, I believe.

there's a difference between (not) caring about money, and rejecting it on principle

How little of the world you've seen then.

This reminds me of Alexander Grothendieck (Fields Medal 1966), who resigned from one of the most prestigious French maths positions (IHES) on ethical grounds. He now lives on reclusion (or the exact opposite of it), as far as is known.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grothendieck

Some call is poverty. Others call it something else. Maybe there is more to life than money.

No doubt Perelman feels it is a matter of principle. He felt unduly neglected by the mathematical establishment when he contacted prominent mathematicians to discuss with them his approach.

I can only hope his mother fully shares his viewpoints if he still lives with her...

+1 for "I hope his mother fully shares his viewpoints".

That being said, it appears he also declined several great job offers. Some people just don't live for material things. Most people say they don't, but their actions (including mine) say differently.

This guy doesn't talk his philosophy, he acts it.

Even if there really is more to life than X, that does not imply that X is not a useful part of life. (I guess I take issue with both the saying in general and this particular application of it.)

Depends. If he can now spend all his time doing what he likes to do, why he would want an additional burden of managing all those money? And even if sometimes in the future he will be in a serious need of money, many math institutions or universities will be more than happy to employ him. So even without accepting that money, he can still do what he loves to do all his time. Happy man :)

He could choose a way of managing the money that was optimized for simplicity. For example putting it all in a one low risk low return income generating instrument. It's hard for me to believe that the stress involved in picking up a decent cheque every month for the rest of his life wouldn't be outweighed by the benefits.

To me his actions are those of a "difficult" person. Very hard for a more relaxed (dare I say "normal") person to understand and rationalize. So I wouldn't bother. As others say, maybe that's part of what makes him different and special.

Where can I find a low risk investment that yields a decent monthly return on 1 million?

By decent I mean "worthwhile" or "significant". I specifically didn't say "enough to replace the income of a comfortably placed person in a first world country". 2% pa yields what, $1600 per month ? Don't you think that would be worthwhile to someone living in poverty in Russia ?

There are lots of useful things in life, but you do not have to accept a thing just because everyone says it is useful. If you asks me, this guy thinks for himself.

Poverty means not being able to afford basic necessities. By that definition, I don't see how poverty can be seen as admirable or good in any way.

I wrote a cheque but the margin was too small.

There was fascinating discussion about this already on HN (several times), anyone have links to those discussions?

Perhaps... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1213150

That's it, which includes a link to a very detailed article that anyone interested in this subject should read: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/08/28/060828fa_fact2

clearly he didn't do it for the money

Yessss!!!

Assuming he doesn't care for the money, it seems like this waste of an opportunity to help some people - and rather selfish. Perhaps the Clay institute will do something good with the money (scholarships?)

if you read the article, it stated that it would donate the prize to charity.

"According to Carlson [Head of Clay], the money will be sent to a charity foundation if Perelman does not claim it within one year."

Anyone got a fake ID and a false beard?

No, but I've got a fake beard and a false ID. Will that do?

Is this a abelian group?

I know I know terrible joke.

Can you count in Russian?

adeen dva tree chiteeriet piat shess sem vosem dyevit dyesit

I can has prize now?

Try: один, два, три, четыри, пять, шесть, семь, восемь, девять, десять.

That's what I said. Surely I get extra credit for transliterating it to what it sounds like to a native english speaker?

I don’t use money...
and I'm of a mind that everyone who contents themself with trying to maintain a financial state is contenting themself with laziness... aka Nazis.
Stop using money.
There is nothing more important than knowing that 'predestiny' is real and absolute- in that is truly the end of fear.
Consider that a thing can only be a product of it's experience or be a useless goof.
Content yourself with pride and I call you out. Content yourself with pride and you are a flailing child without worthy opinion.
Pride is goofy. Proud is the last thing anyone of consciousness wants to be.
Pride is a lie. Give me my due by considering what I say, lest you be totally without honour... Predestiny is real and absolute. Free-will is not real. Whatever is perceived as a 'choice' can only ever be experience reacting to the now.
This is about everything.
Consider me. NOW. There is nothing more important than this. This is the truth that saves.
GIVE UNTIL YOU DIE

David http://www.angelfire.com/apes/hatrackman/money.htm

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