Awards
Saint Petersburg Mathematical Society Prize (1991) EMS Prize (1996), declined Fields Medal (2006), declined Millennium Prize (2010), declined“nah, you’re alright”
For any not in the loop: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman
Also from the article:
The writer Brett Forrest briefly interacted with Perelman in 2012. A reporter who had called him was told: “You are disturbing me. I am picking mushrooms.”
I enjoy this man’s focus and determination. I feel like the world probably missed out on good things when he left academia, but I can’t blame the dude when I saw why he refused a million dollars for solving the Poincaré Conjecture. He seems like a person with very strong principles.
A million dollars buys a lot of food and shelter which gives you more time to do mushroom picking. And the process of accepting the prize probably wouldn’t have taken more than a couple of days
There is no taking the money and staying true to your principles here. Either you say the whole sphere of academia is corrupt and fucked, or you take a nice big cash prize and play the game. Can’t say taking money is bad and then take that money yourself
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No, you can’t. If you believe that academia is corrupted by money to the point you walk away from it, taking their accolades and cash prizes would make you a complete hypocrite. And nobody would take you or anything you say afterwards seriously any more.
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