Math genius Grigori Perelman explains why he turned down $1 million prize
ca.news.yahoo.com
ca.news.yahoo.com
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
[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.
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.
You are right about nicknames though. I used it in a colloquial sense but the correct term would be a familiar form.
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.
Not many people actually live by their principles like this. Good for him.
I suspect Perelman has a sense of humor of a pure mathematician and he made fun of the journalist and the press in subversive ways known only to Leningrad intelligentsia.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I knew his first name is Richard; didn't know Dick is diminutive for Richard.
Feynman was known to use this as a personal nickname.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
"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."
Also if you think about that - 1 million after taxes (and you probably need to pay taxes twice - first in the USA and then in Russia) is not that much money for someone who wants to demonstrate his principles.
And for some organizations having him would bring millions in grants, so if he declines the prize from these people - there is a reason for that. There was a great article in newyorker, in a few words, the world of science smells.
http://slashdot.org/story/06/08/25/2346220/New-Yorker-on-Per...
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.
The fallacy there is the assumption that he will never need $1M to think about math. He could get hit by a bus next week and need $1M for medical care.
(A quick Wikipedia check says that Russia has public health care supplemented with private providers. Suppose here that his injuries were bad enough that the public system wouldn't completely heal him.)
But the idea that he wouldn't have other resources to draw on, short of the $1M prize, seems wrong.
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.
If he had a family to support, it might be a different matter.
Jason Fried and DHH talk extensively about the corrupting power of money. Needing to get paying customers in order to survive is a useful selective pressure. Jason Fried has a quote something like "Companies without funding get good at making money, companies with funding get good a spending it."
Both of these are economic reasons.
In addition, even if accepting the money would be a net gain for him, refusing it isn't the height of economic stupidity, as you suggest. Doing something that caused him to LOSE money is surely more stupid. Refusing the $1m is simply neutral. Not good, not bad. Medium stupid.
And lastly, likening him to people with Down Syndrome (and other disorders that fall under the umbrella of "retardation"), suggesting "well there's stupid, and then there's DOWN SYNDROME" is distasteful. If you think he's being epically stupid, that's fine. But likening him to an already maligned social class in order to make that point is not nice.