A reclusive Russian mathematician has rejected a $1 million award for solving a problem that has baffled some of the finest brains for a century. Grigory Perelman simply said he has everything he needs.
The mathematician announced it to journalists of the British tabloid the Daily Mail through the door of his apartment in St. Petersburg.
The prize was for proving the Poincaré conjecture which is linked to the understanding of multidimensional shapes.
The Clay Mathematics Institute in the US offers the financial reward to anyone who can solve one of its seven “Millennium Problems” of the last hundred years.
Perelman has little contact with the outside world, and has a history of not accepting awards for his work.
In 2006, he received the highest prize for mathematics, The Fields Medal, but he also failed to collect the award.