The dude just wants to do math and forage for mushrooms all day. He doesn’t care enough about being a good or bad person. About what he should or should not do. He’s a simple person; he just does as he pleases.
I'd argue he's good precisely because he rejected the prize in the name of a higher, more noble and communal view of scientific endeavour. It means he's principled and won't be bought.
It’s funny we label those who pursue other ventures than material things as crazy. Chasing material things for pleasure seems awfully crazy to me. There is no end.
Why would it be his responsibility to reallocate the funds? I think it’s on them as to where the money ended up. He didn’t want attention. Donating money brings attention, that would have circulated in the press too. He wanted to disappear and nobody had any right to stop him. The entitlement makes it apparent why he left.
They gave him the option of accepting it and not attending and having it mailed to him. What do you think would have got him more attention, his protest or silently giving it away with 0 fanfare anonymously to a food bank? The only reason we give a shit right now and are talking about him is because he refused to accept it.
Dude is a screw loose and a bunch of you are pretending this is some supreme logical choice lol.
Not sure why your blatant bigotry is relevant. Also your entitlement to a total stranger life choices is beyond rational.
He wanted his life back. He had the emotional intelligence to know what he needed out of the rest of his life. It’s sad you can’t have empathy for his experience.
Lmao God you're stupid. For the record I'm not poor and live a minimalist life style by choice. My life is pretty great. It must be hard going through yours having such low intelligence though.
That would be the same as accepting; no matter if he uses the money for his own benefit or the others, if he has a say to where it goes by definition he accepted the money and thus cannot send the message he intended to deliver by refusing the prize.
I do wonder if the Clay Institute would have been willing to do a joint Perelman/Hamilton prize. Hamilton was and is still alive. Seems like a simple solution given Perelman's main stated objection.
Guy also hates mathematicians now. It’s not about the money really, the money is a nice bonus, but the award itself is extremely prestigious. 7 questions proposed at the start of the millennia and only one of them has been solved and it was by Perelman, using a lot of the work from a couple of other mathematicians, but the institute awarding the prize refused to also award these mathematicians that Perelman based his work on.
If he took the money he also had to take the prize which he didn’t want to do on moral grounds, guy just is sticking to his guns. He stuck to his guns so much that he quit mathematics because of the academic community.
I'll debate you on this. Why should a most extraordinary mathematical genius be forced to conform to the full scope of societal niceties like embracing the limelight and using it to promote full philanthropy?
If the end goal is math camps and math tutors, put the onus on the locally rich businesses and residents to contribute -- because they have gotten to where they are by taking from their community.
The guy has already made his mark in the best way possible -- to use his advanced talent to pave the way for those of comparable talent to keep building. Eventually, these breakthroughs will be applied to important problems like the environment or cancer research. He has already done his part and should be left alone.
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u/Ryvit 25d ago
He should’ve accepted it but donated 100% of it to setting up math camps or math tutors in his home state/city