The man who refused a million dollars
By Svetlana Smetanina Is Grigory Perelman a symbol of the new Russia ? What everyone has been talking about for so long and couldn't quite believe has now finally happened. The Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman has officially refused the Millennium Prize of $1 million awarded him by the Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge , Mass. , for proving the Poincaré conjecture. Perelman's explanation for this refusal was as surprising as his actual refusal. He disagrees with the decision of the mathematics community: "I do not like their decision, I consider it unfair," he said. "I consider that the American mathematician [Richard] Hamilton 's contribution to the solution of the problem is no less than mine." What Hamilton thinks about this is not yet known. Since March, when the prize winner was announced, people had been guessing whether Perelman would take the money or not (he had earlier refused a prize of $10,000), and if he did take it, ...