A Russian mathematician has won $1 million for solving a century-old puzzle – but it is unclear whether he will turn up to collect his prize.
Grigori Perelman caused a sensation seven years ago when he announced that he had solved one of the toughest problems in mathematics, the Poincaré conjecture.
This was set out by French mathematician Henri Poincaré in 1904 and had been tackled unsuccessfully by many famous mathematicians for almost a century. Put simply, it states that any three-dimensional space without holes in it is a sphere.
Solution
After Dr Perelman published his proof in a series of papers in 2002 and 2003 his fellow mathematicians set about verifying it. This they did in 2006 and confirmed his solution.
However Dr Perelman had become increasingly reclusive over this period, refusing to return phone calls or emails. He was awarded the Fields Medal by the International Mathematical Union in 2006. But he declined the prestigous prize (known as the Nobel Prize of maths).
Now he has been named the winner of a $1 million Millennium Problem prize by the Clay Mathematics Institute in the US. Seven of these problems, each with a $1 million award, were set up in 2000. They are based on long-unsolved problems in maths and the other six remain unsolved.
The Clay Institute has been in touch with Dr Perelman, but is not saying wether he will accept his prize.
Learn more
Check out the Millennium Problems
Find out more about the Poincaré conjecture
