Grigori Perelman: The impossible equation
A brilliant mathematician, Grigori Perelman solved Poincaré's conjecture in 2002 before turning down a million dollars and recognition from his peers to live the life of a recluse. Here's his story.
A gift to humanity
With his bushy hair and thick beard, Grigori Perelman is a Russian mathematical genius. In November 2002, this researcher at the Steklov Institute in Saint Petersburg published a 59-page document on the Internet in which he solved Poincaré's conjecture, one of the seven most sought-after problems according to the American Clay Mathematics Institute. Using a revolutionary approach based in part on physics and thermodynamics, Perelman “has achieved the Holy Grail that can shed light on the shape of the universe,” explains Michel Boileau, a specialist in geometry. And renowned mathematician Cédric Villani enthuses: this seven-year solitary work is “astonishing, an extraordinary gift to humanity.”
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“I know how to govern the universe. Why should I chase after a million?”
Why chase after a million?
After four years of verification and a thousand pages of reports, the scientific community confirmed that Grigori Perelman had solved Poincaré's conjecture. But the mathematician struggled to cope with this period of controversy.
In 2006, he left the Steklov Institute and refused the Fields Medal, a kind of Nobel Prize for mathematics awarded by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). In 2010, Perelman declined the “Millennium Prize” and the $1 million award given by the Clay Mathematics Institute for his work. “I know how to govern the universe. Why should I chase after a million?” he explained humorously. In fact, for all these years, Grigori Perelman has been living in seclusion in a small apartment in the suburbs of Saint Petersburg. He lives there with his mother and leads a hermit's life of silence and frugality.
Cameron dedicates a film to him
At 46, Grigori Perelman still has a taste for research. In an interview in 2011, he said: "There are no unsolvable problems. Just problems that are difficult to solve. If you can train your body, why not train your brain? " That was all it took for rumors to spread. Perelman is now said to be studying Navier-Stokes fluid flow. Even more surprising, Israeli producer Alexander Zabrovski announced that Perelman had agreed to star in and advise director James Cameron on the film dedicated to him. A strange equation.