This interview is suspected of being fake. Russian bloggers who investigated this weren't able to find the person who allegedly interviewed Perelman. There are errors in the names of math departments, papers etc. that Perelman couldn't conceivably commit. Some of his statements contradict what's known about his attitudes.

There's a detailed case built here (in Russian): http://josef-gotlib.livejournal.com/466777.html

A St. Petersburg mathematician and former colleague of Perelman, before he became a recluse, is convinced the interview is a load of made-up nonsense (in Russian): http://udod.livejournal.com/169316.html

the genius refused the prize, claiming the knowledge gained to be worth more than the financial reward.

It's a reason, but certainly a deeply personal one specific to him. Pragmatically, taking the money doesn't mean he loses the knowledge, even if the knowledge is "worth more" - it's just extra on top.

I suspect the more mundane reason is that if you want to stay living in a working class Russian neighborhood, being known to have accepted $1m is going to make your life pretty tough.

This guy is just awesome. His quote, I know how to control the universe. So tell me, why should I run for a million? actually gave me goosebumps.

Not many people actually live by their principles like this. Good for him.

The most thorough accounting I've ever read of the story is in The New Yorker, here: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/08/28/060828fa_fact2

Read the article and draw your own conclusions, but it seemed to me that Perelman simply wanted nothing to do with other mathematicians. He seemed to think that accepting the Millenium Prize, the Fields Medal, or a professorship would mean that he would have to participate in a more traditional practice of mathematics, complete with politics and whatnot, and he had no interest in doing so.

More specifically, the article discusses the efforts of Yau to examine Perelman's proof, with a view to finding a flaw, fixing it, and ultimately taking credit for the One True Correct Proof of Poincare's conjecture. Whether this is a fair characterization is beyond me, but I would say that Perelman is probably justified in his perception that had he joined mainstream mathematics he would have to spend time defending his ideas from other mathematicians, and I can understand why someone wouldn't want to do that.

But a million bucks? I think I'd take the money.

There’s a very nice book about the Poincaré conjecture, going from the roots of geometry in Euclid’s Elements to Perelman’s proof:

http://books.google.com/books?id=kM8fAQAAIAAJ

At least for me it hit the sweet spot between a rigorous math paper and a good story book.

As described in Surely You're Joking, Dick Feynman wanted to refuse the Nobel for similar reasons: fame would interfere with his work.

He eventually accepted it because refusing would cause more of a stink than accepting. But he wrote a few anecdotes about the trouble "that damn prize" caused him.

I and most people here, I guess, would find the logic very appealing and accept to use the money as insurance or give it to charity.

But then, possession and responsibility can be a burden and fear is the path to the dark side.

Consider - what is happening to the Clay money now? I've no idea but I guess it will be spend on another price for another problem or some other useful purpose. So it will go to charity anyway. One problem less to think about for Perelman. There are only so many things you concentrate on and I'm happy to hear, that he will keep his focus on math!

Why not just take it and use it as insurance that he will always be able to spend his time doing math... This has nothing to do with principles.

Suppose it's 1920 in Russia (or Germany) and you turn down $1M. You sure as hell could use that money 20 years later to bribe officials to get out of the country and flee to the US. He's young and living in Russia, a lot of shit could happen in the next 50 years. He should've just taken it, buy gold and bury it in his backyard.

The article doesn't state the news very well-- this is in fact a very old story. The actual news is buried in somewhere in the 4th paragraph: that the proof has finally been peer-reviewed and confirmed .. but, even then, that news is from March 2010. (Of course, the more interesting story is the one in which Perelman refuses the prize).

This proof is especially notable for being the first of the Millennium Problems to be solved. For those interested, here is the Clay Math announcement (the actual news) the article left out: http://www.claymath.org/poincare/millenniumPrizeFull.pdf (contains an overview of the Poincaré conjecture and a link to Perelman's proof).

Hmm...

The Wired article (linked within under "can control the universe") seemed to suggest that he solved the problem by "channeling Jesus"...which seems to misrepresent that he was talking about his childhood training, rather than how he actually solved the conjecture.

Another reason he turned it down was his disgust with the math community, after the debacle of "Shing-Tung Yau to downplay Perelman's role in the proof and play up the work of Cao and Zhu".

"I can't say I'm outraged. Other people do worse. Of course, there are many mathematicians who are more or less honest. But almost all of them are conformists. They are more or less honest, but they tolerate those who are not honest."

Funny how such stories turn up as just a day ago a different source was featured on HN. Especially when this is old information (by the measure of when it was released/happened, not if it was known by readers or not). I guess it could be a nice tactic:

1. monitor HN, FB, twitter for interest 2. quickly rehash and compile an article 3. ??? 4. profit!

I guess you can be matematically genius while being economically retard.