Contents
Grigori Perelman
Solving the Poincaré conjecture, a century-old problem about the shape of three-dimensional spaces.
Soul conjecture · Ricci flow papers
- Born
- 13 June 1966
- Birthplace
- Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg, Russia
More people
Grigori Perelman
Perelman made major advances in geometry before publishing the papers that resolved the Poincaré conjecture. He later declined the Fields Medal and a million-dollar Millennium Prize.
Early life
Mathematical schooling
Studied in Leningrad’s specialist mathematics programme and trained with Sergei Rukshin.
Olympiad success
Won a gold medal with a perfect score at the 1982 International Mathematical Olympiad.
Career
- 1990
Research career
Completed his doctorate and worked at the Steklov Institute.
- 1990s
United States research
Held visiting and research positions in New York and Berkeley before returning to Saint Petersburg.
- 2005
Leaving his post
Resigned from the Steklov Institute after publishing his major work.
Contributions
Soul conjecture
Proved a longstanding result about spaces with nonnegative curvature.
Ricci flow papers
Extended Richard Hamilton’s approach to resolve the geometrization and Poincaré conjectures.
Millennium Prize
The Clay Mathematics Institute recognised his solution; he declined the award.
Beyond mathematics
Declining honours
Turned down the 2006 Fields Medal as well as the later cash prize.
Public attention
Withdrew from the normal academic circuit rather than pursuing the publicity surrounding his proof.
Sources & photo credit
Life, career and references ↗University of St Andrews biography ↗Institutional biography and contributions ↗Photo: George Bergman. CC BY-SA 4.0 · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.
_(cropped).jpg){kind=link}