Russian genius not sure if he'll take his $1 million prize for solving 100-year-old math problem

He's not the first math genius/nutcase.

Alexander Grothendieck (Fields Medal Winner in 1966) declined the Crafoord Prize in 1988:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Grothendieck

Grothendieck was a theoretician. There's a famous story about him that goes like this:

In a mathematical conversation, someone suggested to Grothendieck that they should consider a particular prime number. "You mean an actual number?" Grothendieck asked. The other person replies, yes, an actual prime number. Grothendieck suggested, "All right, take 57."

57 is known as the "Grothendieck prime".

here is a good article on the whole situation:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/08/28/060828fa_fact2?currentPage=1

After reading I think he's reasons for not wanting to take should be more apparent, which are not out of arrogance or because he's a nut job.

the mathemagician wrote:

... You obviously know nothing about mathematics. Here is a hint, it's a lot more then what you learn in high school algebra.

...it's a lot more THAN what you learn...

I understand that he doesn't want it:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/23/grigory-perelman-rejects-1m-dollars

When asked for a comment, "You are disturbing me. I am picking mushrooms."

no more myths wrote:

Yeah but you've already demonstrated yourself to be a religious freak so who cares?

That's exactly my point. I'm a smart guy, but it doesn't matter to anyone of you as long as I have a different belief system than yours.

SWEDES wrote:

If the problem is one hundred years old and no one had solved it how do we know he came up with the right answer? For all we know his answer might just be ass backward.

By that logic, how do we know that anything is true? Everything we know as true could be ass backward because it took 100 years to figure out.

Heres another hint wrote:

the mathemagician wrote:

... You obviously know nothing about mathematics. Here is a hint, it's a lot more then what you learn in high school algebra.

...it's a lot more THAN what you learn...

Well done. I will give you 1 Brownie point for that. When you get to 10 you can have a cookie.

jjjjjjjjjjjj wrote:

the mathemagician wrote:

Umm... it's called logic

that's pretty funny. you didn't ever hear of the failure of that attempt to reduce math to logic?

Whats so funny. This kind of math is all about making logical arguments. Then some people check them. Thats how they know it is correct.

Sounds like that Chinese guy is trying to take credit for his contribution when he didn't do shit. Thats pretty f***ed up.

He should accept it and spend it on something frivolous.

"Russian math genius discovers what it's like to swim in Olympic size pool of Jello"

thumper wrote:

An update on the story: He's not Russian. He was actually a kid from south Boston with a juvenile record, working as a janitor at Harvard. He solved a problem on the blackboard and the douchebag professor caught him, but he didn't want recognition because he thought he liked his life the way it was -- really he had deep-seated emotional problems from being abused as a child. To stay out of jail after aggravated assault, he went to therapy where he learned to love again. He met a woman who broke his heart, and he broke hers, but they ended up getting back together. He accepted the million dollars and yelled, at the awards ceremony, "How 'bout dem apples?!"

Too bad it was MIT, not Harvard. Thanks for playing though.

srsly bro. ummmmm... ever heard of kurt godel?

jjjjjjjjjjjj wrote:

that's pretty funny. you didn't ever hear of the failure of that attempt to reduce math to logic?