MADRID - A Russian genius won the Fields Medal, the math world's highest honor, Tuesday for work toward resolving a 100-year-old brain-twister about three-dimensional space. But he shunned the ceremony and stayed out of the spotlight.
Grigory Perelman, a 40-year-old native of St. Petersburg, Russia, was cited for solving the Poincare conjecture, a conundrum concerning the nature of three-dimensional space that experts say might help determine the shape of the universe.
Three other scholars who won Fields Medals, which carry a $13,400 stipend each and are often described as math's equivalent of the Nobel prize, accepted their prizes from Spain's King Juan Carlos at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid.
But Perelman stayed home in St. Petersburg, said Alexander Abramov, a member of the Russian Education Academy.
Serge Rukshin, Perelman's former teacher and scientific supervisor, said Perelman apparently has no interest in medals or money - only in knowledge.
"Grigory is a devoted scientist in the pure sense of the word. He believes that the most important thing is that the problem is solved," Rukshin said.
Colleagues say Perelman also seems uninterested in a separate $1-million prize he could eventually win for proving the Poincare conjecture, which has fascinated - and defeated - some of the world's most brilliant minds since it was proposed in 1904.
Perelman is believed to live with his mother in St. Petersburg. Abramov said in Moscow that he spoke to Perelman by phone and got the impression he may completely give up on math.
"Now I'm most worried about how he feels and what will happen to him. He is a brilliant mathematician. Such talents should not go away," Abramov said.
John Ball, president of the International Mathematical Union that is holding the convention in Madrid, said Perelman is still considered a Fields medalist.
The Fields medal, which is awarded every four years, was founded in 1936 and was named after Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields. The three other winners were Russian Andrei Okounkov, Frenchman Wendelin Werner and Australian Terence Tao.
Perelman is eligible for far more money from a private foundation called the Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Mass.
In 2000, the institute announced bounties for seven historic, unsolved math problems, including the Poincare conjecture. If his proof stands the test of time, Perelman will win all or part of the $1-million prize money. That prize should be announced in about two years. Until then academics can challenge Perelman's work.
That work draws from a technique developed by mathematician Richard Hamilton of Columbia University. The Clay Mathematics Institute says the two men could share the Poincare money.
The Poincare conjecture is key to the field of topology, which studies shapes. It basically says that in three dimensions you cannot transform a doughnut shape into a sphere without ripping it, although any shape without a hole can be stretched or shrunk into a sphere.
Perelman spent eight years wrestling with it, and so far no one has found a serious flaw in his work, the International Mathematical Union said.
Colleagues say Perelman's work gives mathematical descriptions of what the universe might look like and promises exciting applications in physics and other fields.
There is some controversy, however. Two Chinese scientists who have been fleshing out Perelman's extremely abbreviated and technical work have said it is they who added new ideas and actually completed the Poincare proof.
