Math Genius Turns Down $1M Prize

Maybe Grigory Perelman really isn’t so smart? Perelman, a reclusive Russian mathematician who lives in a roach-infested apartment in St. Petersburg, declined a $1 million prize for solving one of mathematics’ most baffling puzzles. He said it would not be fair to those who accomplished important work on it before him. Perelman discovered the solution to the famous Poincare Conjecture, which deals with hyperdimensional objects and stood unsolved for over a century, in 2002. And in March, the Clay Mathematics Institute awarded him the cash reward after rigorous tests proved he was right. But Perelman did not want to draw undue attention to himself. “I have refused,” Perelman said. “You know, I had quite a lot of reasons both for and against. That is why I took so long to make up my mind.”