Genius turns down $1.4 million maths prize

Exile 1798

FOR US$1 million ($1.4 million), do you know what is a Poincaré Conjecture?

Well, even if you do, don't bother - a Russian maths whiz has solved one of the world's most famous and trickiest century-old mathematics problem.

In doing so, he won the million-dollar prize money.

But Dr Grigory Perelman, 44, not only declined the money awarded to him, he has decided to remain in his cockroach-infested apartment in St Petersburg, Russia, said reports.

Seven years ago, he startled the scientific world by claiming to solve this problem.

Poincaré Conjecture, a theory put forward in 1904, is fundamental to topology (or the study of the properties of geometric figures or solids that are not changed by stretching or bending). It essentially says that any three-dimensional space without holes in it is a sphere.

The answer to the puzzle could help determine the shape of the universe.

Dr Perelman, then a researcher at the Steklov Institute of Mathematics at St Petersburg, posted three papers on the Internet sketching out a solution in 2003, and they attracted fevered interest, reported The New York Times.
Several teams of mathematicians verified his answer after using his solution as a guide.

After a whirlwind tour of the US, Dr Perelman returned to Russia and gradually stopped answering e-mail messages and even resigned from his post at Steklov.

Friends reportedly said he has withdrawn from mathematics altogether - finding the subject too painful to discuss.

In 2006, the International Mathematical Union in Madrid announced that Dr Perelman would be awarded its prestigious Fields Medal for solving the problem.

He did not turn up then.

At the time, he stated: "I'm not interested in money or fame. I don't want to be on display like an animal in a zoo.

"I'm not a hero of mathematics. I'm not even that successful. That is why I don't want to have everybody looking at me."

http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20100325-206674.html

The profit motive is an effective driver of human innovation and progress. It is off course not the only driver.

This is why the profit motive is not held to be a moral absolute. If companies or individuals develop medicines for example that can save the life of HIV sufferers they are not allowed to copyright their work forever and charge what ever they demand for it. They may make a profit, but in this regard the good of society overwrites the "sovereignty" of the individual or private company.

There are however ideologues who would say otherwise. Their argument would have some merit if self interest and profit were the sole driver of human progress - they are not.

silverharp

Exile 1798 wrote: »

There are however ideologues who would say otherwise. Their argument would have some merit if self interest and profit were the sole driver of human progress - they are not.

:D

ei.sdraob

ive been thru' this with you already



definition of Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic and social system in which capital and land, the non-labor factors of production (also known as the means of production), are privately owned; labor, goods and resources are traded in markets; and profit, after taxes, is distributed to the owners or invested in technologies and, industries.

profit does not have to be monetary
profit does not have to be monetary
profit does not have to be monetary
profit does not have to be monetary
profit does not have to be monetary
profit does not have to be monetary
profit does not have to be monetary
profit does not have to be monetary



ok now that we got that out of the way, some companies are setup to maximise other things beside financial gain, think of charities or trusts

they still have a "profit motive" its just doesnt involve $€£

ok?

Eliot Rosewater

Exile 1798 wrote: »

The profit motive is an effective driver of human innovation and progress. It is off course not the only driver.

It depends on how loosely you define profit. Merian-Webster defines it as "a valuable return". In this definition donating money to charity is profitable; it provides one with a good moral feeling. Contributing to free software, such as Firefox, is profitable because it yields a good product at the end.

Exile 1798 wrote: »

they are not allowed to copyright their work forever and charge what ever they demand for it.

This comes up quite a bit. Drug patents are there to provide an incentive for companies to create products. Why, pray tell, would a company invest hundreds of millions of euro in a product only to have a competing company take the design for it for effectively nothing?

Consider the example of the first Intel chip, which cost €2 billion to research. Do you think Intel would have put this money into the chip if, say, AMD could just take the design and make it themselves for comparatively little?

Exile 1798 wrote: »

Their argument would have some merit if self interest and profit were the sole driver of human progress - they are not.

Am I right in saying there's an insinuation going on here? Your argument that profit is not the only motivator is, by itself, meaningless. The other motivators - not mentioned - may be vastly inferior to the profit motive. The insinuation appears to be that capitalism is bad because there exists another kind of motive.

Its like saying Bentleys are bad cars because, you know, theres other kind of cars.

Permabear

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Valmont

Typical. I read about this yesterday and immediately wagered with myself that someone would use it to pursue some fantastical agenda on boards. I would genuinely like to know why he turned down his prize? He lives with his mother does he not? It's a sad story really.

Permabear

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Valmont

donegalfella wrote: »

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Cooking his dinners no less. They must be fuming!

Permabear

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flynnlives

donegalfella wrote: »

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You see this is the attitude he didnt want to deal with, it seems that you think that he now owes society his cognitive abilities. Remember free will or what little there is left of it! Imagine solving a puzzle for the sheer enjoyment! Shocking stuff i know!!

Winty

Thanks all

I am now so confused with this thread, I have a headache

What is everyone talking about a smart guy who solved a puzzle or Capitalism

Cannibal Ox

Valmont wrote: »

I would genuinely like to know why he turned down his prize? He lives with his mother does he not? It's a sad story really.

He turned it down because he thinks the mathematics community doesn't live up to his ethical standards. He thinks he's better then them, and they have no right to judge his work or to award it. Afaik, when he originally proposed the solution there was some skepticism, and I don't think he took that particularly well. I think he left the maths community after that, said they didn't live up to his ethical standards, and when they offered him the reward, it was a chance for him to say publicly screw you.

So, I think, he was snubbing them. It was vindictive and petty, and had nothing to do with altruism or selflessness. Pride before the fall and all that.

Edit: He is a genius, and while the press might have fun talking about him living with his mother in a cockroach infested apartment, and people might get a giggle out of that too, it's worth keeping in mind that he solved a very difficult problem, and he will probably have the last laugh regardless of what anyone says of him.

Permabear

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silverharp

My original thought when I heard the story was that given that preferences are subjective, and unless he has been certified with a mental disorder, it is absolutely rational for him to turn down a monetary reward if he feels that in his case it would not be worth the publicity.

People often trade money for time or other subjective preferences so I dont see OP's point in phrasing the thread as he did. The proposition is false.

Valmont

Silverharp2 wrote: »

My original thought when I heard the story was that given that preferences are subjective, and unless he has been certified with a mental disorder, it is absolutely rational for him to turn down a monetary reward if he feels that in his case it would not be worth the publicity.

People often trade money for time or other subjective preferences so I dont see OP's point in phrasing the thread as he did. The proposition is false.

Although if he is living unemployed in a cockroach infested flat with his mother then I would question the rationality of said decision.

Permabear

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silverharp

donegalfella wrote: »

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My guess based on the limited facts is that he probably does have some form of mental disorder or in some sense "snapped" after he produced his work. It wouldnt be the first time that a genius sailed close to the edge of sanity.
Its an interesting story but as used for a springboard for this thread, pretty pointless.

walshb

donegalfella wrote: »

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Exactly what I was going to write but you beat me to it;)

A maths genius he is, a slob he definitely is. I'd much rather be a maths genius.

SLUSK

geniuses are sometimes quite strange, anyone remember the chess player Bobby Fischer? He was quite an odd man as well.

nyarlothothep

Accepting an award etc doesn't necessarily imply further progress with respect to Dr. Perelman. He just hasn't acted in a way which conforms to the idea of incentives, which isn't something to be judged negatively. Doing so indicates that one is making an assumption on how people should behave, as willing components in the capitalist system. In any case I'll break with the general boards consensus and not judge him for living with his family. Neither do I hold it to be true that his flat is infested with cockroaches unless there is photographic evidence which prooves this, otherwise it sounds like the worst kind of rhetorical sophistry.

Permabear

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nyarlothothep

donegalfella wrote: »

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I never said he was rebelling intentionally against the system, I said his actions don't cohere with the notion of incentivization. The last comment has no meaning, its essentially mudslinging.

bonkey

This story was also covered on slashdot the other day.

Someone there made the comment that Perelman said that if he accepted the money he would feel obligated to use it to correct the wrongs that he could see, else he would feel a hypocrite. Because he didn't want that crusade or responsibility, he had no choice but to reject the money.

One could argue that he only had to accept it and then give it to charity, but that assumes that he'd be happy just giving it to any charity, rather than agonising over where it would do the most good.

Personally, I think its resaonable to say he is eccentric, in the sense that he clearly has a set of values and morals which are somewhat different to the mainstream. I don't find them necessarily wrong in any way...and I certainly wouldn't side with any notion that because he has a somewhat different set of values that there must be something wrong with him.

A lot of people (not just here) have said that they find nothing praiseworthy in his actions. I'm not sure what the relevance of that is, given that I genuinely believe Perelman didn't make the decision in any sort of attempt to gain praise, nor to try to live up to anyone else's standards. He made the decision based on his own standards...and I hope he is happy with it.

Permabear

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SLUSK

donegalfella wrote: »

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This guy seems to be something out of the Ayn Rand novel Atlas Shrugged where prominent scientists and business men go on "strike", they stop working in their fields and pick up menial jobs because they don't want to contribute to a society that despises them and treats them as slaves.

Permabear

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bonkey

donegalfella wrote: »

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If thats the tragedy, then is it a tragedy because Perelman is an idealist who decided that his current situation is preferable to academia, or is it a tragedy because of the conditions in academia which led him to that decision?

Is it a tragedy that someone - anyone - is willing to give up something because they will not accept the ethical problems that others are willing to ignore....or is it a tragedy that we, as a society, generally accept and ignore a certain low level of ethical corruption or malfeasance.

It simply saddens me to see talent or genius wasted.

Indeed. Noting that we both seem to accept that the owner of talent or genius has the right to decide to do so, I would still say that the real question here is whether or not the issue in this case lies with Perelman or with society.

He seems to have stricter ethical standards then were common to the environment he was in...and it is those standards which led to his withdrawal. If there is fault...where does it lie?

Permabear

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silverharp

out of curiosity, what professional pressures might he or someone like him be under. I would have thought that any institution would be happy to have him and would leave him alone as long as was getting work published?

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Exile 1798

donegalfella wrote: »

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Not really, and his life is his business.

The point is, he solved a great mathematical and scientific question. Not for money or personal gain.

I put to you a higher case. Charles Darwin's formulation of the Theory of Evolution and Newton's Theory of Gravity were likewise efforts not driven by profit but other human motivations.

Hence why it is wrong to treat Capitalism as an all encompassing dogma or a sacred ideal. If it were the sole source of human progress then the absurd position that it shouldn't be regulated, shouldn't be tamed and should run every aspect of society might be justified.

Eliot Rosewater

Exile 1798 wrote: »

Hence...

That's got to be the most precarious "hence" I've ever come across in my life.

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bonkey

donegalfella wrote: »

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Unless you could establish that he formed his theory of Gravity (or any of the rest of his intellectual work) in order to achieve something like his position of being Master of the Royal Mint, this argument is entirely spurious.

As for Charles Darwin, he was the son of a wealthy doctor and financier, and never had to work for a living. You don't think he could just sail all over the world collecting specimens on no money, do you?

Indeed...Darwin was minted (all puns intended). He didn't produce his work for financial gain. Quite the opposite, in fact. He leveraged his existing financial situation to allow him to do what he wanted to do.

Exile 1798

donegalfella wrote: »

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Doesn't address the point at all.

And you're creating a straw man. In none of my cases did I postulate that "selfless benevolence" was at work.

nesf

What's the issue here? That someone did something and was left financially worse off and that this turns over capitalism? I mean, no one has genuinely believed that individuals work solely as profit maximisers pretty much ever. Are most motivated by money to some extent? Sure. But that's not the only reason people do things and really it's hard to fathom how the existence of other motivations undermines capitalism as a system..

nesf

bonkey wrote: »

Indeed...Darwin was minted (all puns intended). He didn't produce his work for financial gain. Quite the opposite, in fact. He leveraged his existing financial situation to allow him to do what he wanted to do.

Was he behaving like a good little utility maximiser though? That's the question.

Exile 1798

nesf wrote: »

What's the issue here? That someone did something and was left financially worse off and that this turns over capitalism? I mean, no one has genuinely believed that individuals work solely as profit maximisers pretty much ever. Are most motivated by money to some extent? Sure. But that's not the only reason people do things and really it's hard to fathom how the existence of other motivations undermines capitalism as a system..

I don't seek to undermine Capitalism. I'm a Capitalist.

However, I do seek to undermine the view that Capitalism is a sacred, all encompassing dogma and that anything that regulates or harnesses Capitalism is wrong.

This view would only hold up if Capitalism, self interest and the profit motive were the sole source of progress. That’s why it's worthwhile pointing out that they are not.

silverharp

Exile 1798 wrote: »

I don't seek to undermine Capitalism. I'm a Capitalist.

However, I do seek to undermine the view that Capitalism is a sacred, all encompassing dogma and that anything that regulates or harnesses Capitalism is wrong.

This view would only hold up if Capitalism, self interest and the profit motive were the sole source of progress. That’s why it's worthwhile pointing out that they are not.

maybe some links? to be fair you are the first person to postulate that Capitalism is the sole source of progress and in an attempt to disprove it, you have pulled one example of a human action out of the billions that occur on a daily basis.

bonkey

nesf wrote: »

Was he behaving like a good little utility maximiser though? That's the question.

Its a fairly subjective question, though, isn't it.

I would be fairly confident that from Darwin's perspective and own value system he was a good little utility maximiser....even if he had no idea what that was.

From the perspective of (some) others at the time, he was probably a fairly typical wastrel....throwing his money away on his whimsy.

From the perspective of history...he achieved great things. Did he achieve as much as he possibly could? Who knows. Its mostly irrelevant. He did what he did, no more and no less.

donegalfella remarked some posts ago that If any one of them had said, "Screw this, I'm out of here," and walked off into obscurity, the world would be a different place today. In a sense, this is the same point. History is almost-certainly rife with wasted genius...as well as fortunate happenstance. It makes no difference...history is as history is. Had one of those intellectual giants said (or not said) "screw this"then the world would be different (maybe better, maybe worse). Someone else would be making the same argument...that had someone said (or not said) "screw this", it would all be different.

We've no idea what the impact to the world would be if Perelman rejoins the mathematical community. Maybe something great. Maybe something terrible. Maybe nothing significant at all.

The man made a tough decision based on his own moral and ethical standards. Yes, he's clearly an individual who's rejecting the established norms of today...but that's not a bad thing in and of itself. If nothing else, its led to us having this discussion

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The Corinthian

Exile 1798 wrote: »

However, I do seek to undermine the view that Capitalism is a sacred, all encompassing dogma and that anything that regulates or harnesses Capitalism is wrong.

This view would only hold up if Capitalism, self interest and the profit motive were the sole source of progress. That’s why it's worthwhile pointing out that they are not.

The profit motive is simply about getting the maximum value out of the resources available to you. All economic systems are about a profit motive, one way or another, otherwise they are wasteful.

Value is not always monetary - actually, it never is ultimately, as money is simply a common medium of exchange for what we actually value - we do not covet money, but what the money can get us. Even when money appears to be the end in itself, it's not really, as those who strive to make as much as they can do so for other reasons (ego, security, etc).

For me, the best counter argument against someone's profit motive simply being monetary is the profession of barrister. Some barristers make a lot of money. Most seem to get by, holding down other jobs or incomes - your average barrister (especially when you take the top 5% out) earns very little from their practice. They are not doing it for monetary reasons, but for the social status it gives or even a love of law or argument - the Four Courts is full of former university debaters who are clueless about the realities of being self-employed.

However, in the end, the example of Perelman is probably a poor one to begin with because he is not representative of the population. That we even refer to him as eccentric shows how abnormal we consider his behaviour. So until the World is populated by Perelman's, his example will simply remain the rare exception that does not make so much as a scratch in the rule.

If you want to criticize classical or liberal Capitalism, you're better off looking at things such as its propensity to create oligopolies and monopolies in the long term, for example.

bonkey

donegalfella wrote: »

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There's nothing curious about it.

I am making a distinction that you appear not to be...that distinction between profiting from your actions, and acting based on a profit motive.

Someone can act out of selfless benevolence and subsequently profit from those acts. That the motivation was selfless does not prevent one from being rewarded.

[quote[
It was Newton's reputation as a preeminent mathematician and scientist that led to his being considered for a top job at the Royal Mint at a crucial point in Britain's monetary history.
[/quote]

Exactly my point. THere is no evidence that Newton sought to become a preeminent mathematician and scientist out of profit motive. He profited from the result, unquestionably, but I would argue that the evidence does not suggest that profit was his reason for undertaking the mathematical and scientifical fields of enquiry in the first place.

Science benefits from capitalism, and vice versa. It is a reciprocal and mutually beneficial relationship, not an antagonistic one.

You seem to be either misunderstanding what we have disagreed on, or are constructing a strawman.

Exile pointed out that Perelman did what he did without a profit motive, as had others in history. You disagreed with his examples because the people in question profited from their acts. All of your continued argument has been about the same idea...people profiting as a result of their actions....which is neither what Exile referred to, nor what I disagreed about.

The two concepts are not mutually exclusive...you can profit without profit having been your motive.

No-one has suggested that only altruism can drive science, nor that capitalism cannot drive science. What was suggested is that science can be progressed without a profit motive, which is (again) not the same as saying that science can be progressed without profiting.

Kama

The Corinthian wrote:

The profit motive is simply about getting the maximum value out of the resources available to you.

I don't see Perelmans position as having any problems squaring with conventional utility-maximization:

“I realize that in Russia I work better,” he told colleagues at the Steklov.
At twenty-nine, Perelman was firmly established as a mathematician and yet largely unburdened by professional responsibilities.

If we can assume his utility function is to produce mathematical proofs, and he finds that easier to accomplish outside of conventional academe, then it's a permanent sabbatical from the distractions of an academic environment.

To take another eccentric figure, I doubt Paul Erdos would have produced more of his highly collaborative style of output if he'd stayed sitting in an office rather than nomadically wandering the world co-authoring.


None of this exactly overturns capitalism, few would argue that intrinsic motivators cannot often trump extrinsic motivators, unless they hold a complete caricature of human motivation. The subtler point, I suspect, would be that the more creative and exceptional the discovery, the less of a component the extrinsic (success, reward, standing) becomes, and the more of a factor the intrinsic (personal obsession, love of the subject, the puzzle as end in itself) becomes.

The Corinthian

Kama wrote: »

If we can assume his utility function is to produce mathematical proofs, and he finds that easier to accomplish outside of conventional academe, then it's a permanent sabbatical from the distractions of an academic environment.

My understanding is that he has left mathematics completely and has simply stated that he wants to be left alone, thus that, rather than the production of mathematical proofs, would more likely be his utility function.

None of this exactly overturns capitalism, few would argue that intrinsic motivators cannot often trump extrinsic motivators, unless they hold a complete caricature of human motivation.

I agree, but quite a few would, but they tend to hold simplistic understandings of either Capitalist or Socialist economic theory - which is what I suspect spawned this thread in the first place.

Madd Finn

I have never heard of this guy Perelman before today but it seems like he is a mathematical genius with an inability to perform many of the mundane chores of life. He is probably smart enough to realise that being able to solve the riddle of the sphinx, or whatever the conundrum he solved was, is not enough in itself to make him rich.

He has got to do other things that he either doesn't want to do, or more probably, just can't do because he struggles with that part of his life. It may seem odd that somebody who could probably calculate the cube root of a 5 figure number in their head struggles with the organisational ability to pay his bills, organise clean underwear and ensure there's enough food on the table at breakfast but there are many people like this. Not all of them geniuses.

My guess is that the prospect of going to the states and lecturing to students who have a fraction of his ability, schmoozing university benefactors for more funds, writing books about things he knows little about and appearing on TV chat shows simply terrifies him because he just can't do that sort of thing. There's something very comforting about an intractable mathematical problem for some people. At tleast there's the prospect that you might actually get a definitive correct answer, but the real world isn't always like that.

I don't think he's making a grand socialistic gesture at all. He is just deficient in some aspects of everyday living. But is it really fair to call somebody like that "depraved", as donegal fella implied he was?

That's the sort of hard-nosed unsympathetic capitalist kneejerk reaction that has spurred "Eat the Rich" revolutionaries for centuries.