Lucy Sherriff, writing for the Register: A Russian mathematician has turned down one of the discipline's most prestigious awards because he doesn't want to involve himself in self promotion. He was due to have been presented with the Fields Medal by King Juan Carlos of Spain on Tuesday this week.
Grigory Perelman published an outline of a proof for the Poincare conjecture back in 2003 as part of his work on the Geometrisation Conjecture, proposed by American mathematician William Thurston in the 1970s. This seeks to characterise all three dimensional surfaces.
So far, other researchers working to check and flesh out his idea have not found any flaws. Perelman himself has not spoken publicly about his work, saying that before the checking is completed it would be premature to do so.
John Ball, retiring president of the International Mathematical Union, told the BBC that he had gone to visit the reclusive mathematician in St Petersburg to discuss his reasons for declining the award.
He said that he wouldn't disclose Perelman's statements beyond saying that Perelman said he felt isolated from the mathematical community, and therefore had no wish to appear to be one of its leaders.
"He has a different psychological makeup that makes him see life differently," he added.
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