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Reclusive mathematician says 'thanks, but no thanks' to that million dollar prize
Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman has apparently turned down a one million-dollar prize which he was awarded in March by the Clay Mathematics Institute. Perelman was awarded one of seven million dollar prizes for solving a "millennium" problem -- the Poincaire conjecture -- which had been puzzling mathematicians for about one hundred years. The problem -- which was a theorem about the governing the properties of three-dimensional spheres -- was one of the most important questions in topology before being solved. While this is not the first time he's turned down a prize, Perelman has seemingly rejected this one because he disagrees with the "organized mathematical community."
