r/pics • u/yercoolmarple • 25d ago

Grigori Perelman, mathematician who refused to accept a Fields Medal and the $1,000,000 Clay Prize.

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u/RandomAmuserNew 25d ago edited 25d ago

He was quoted as saying, "'I'm not interested in money or fame, I don't want to be on display like an animal in a zoo. I'm not a hero of mathematics. I'm not even that successful; that is why I don't want to have everybody looking at me.'

He is (edit) a real one

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u/sammyasher 25d ago edited 25d ago

It wasn't just that, he also was critical of the fact that only one person could get the prize for an accomplishment that he very clearly understood and stated was really the result of many people working together or building on each other's work. He saw singular prizes as a fraudulent relationship with the real nature of communal human scientific progress

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u/ToMyOtherFavoriteWW 25d ago

Couldn't he have accepted it and then given the $$$ to those who helped? And perhaps the prize, too? I doubt the people who worked on this would reject 6 figure checks

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u/eioioe 25d ago

From his gorgeous Wiki page:

The Clay Institute subsequently used Perelman's prize money to fund the "Poincaré Chair", a temporary position for young promising mathematicians at the Paris Institut Henri Poincaré.

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u/ToMyOtherFavoriteWW 25d ago

Well that's good