Maxwell Render | Official public forum

In particular, it appears that he has proven Thurston's geometrization conjecture. If so, this solves in the affirmative the famous Poincaré conjecture, which has been regarded for one hundred years as one of the most important (and most difficult) open problems in mathematics.

In August 2006, Perelman was awarded the Fields Medal [1], which is widely considered to be the top honor a mathematician can receive. However, he declined to accept the award or appear at the congress.

On August 22, 2006, Perelman was offered in absentia a Fields Medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid. The Fields Medal is the highest award in mathematics; two to four medals are awarded every four years. Perelman was offered the award "for his contributions to geometry and his revolutionary insights into the analytical and geometric structure of the Ricci flow".[2] However, he did not attend the ceremony,[3] and he has declined to accept the medal.[4]

Perelman, however, may be uninterested in either honors or money. He has consistently been described by those who know him as shy and unworldly. He has previously turned down a prestigious prize from the European Mathematical Society, allegedly saying that he felt the prize committee was unqualified to assess his work (even positively).

morbid angel wrote:genious people like that, are usually a bit on a crazy side....

Thomas An. wrote:

morbid angel wrote:genious people like that, are usually a bit on a crazy side....

If he is indeed crazy then our assesment of genious was incorrect to begin with.
If he is indeed genious then our assement of crazy was incorrect to begin with.

Calling a genious selectively crazy (on actions of theirs that *we* do not uberstand) is a bit of an oxymoron IMHO. Unless "genious" is defined only as someone who discovers truths that we like (but if they discover truths we do not like then they are defined as crazy).