Integrity over money: The story of the mathematician who refused 1million dollars
1 Million Dollars 1 million dollars. You could do a million different things with it. You could buy a house, a Lamborghini, an ice cream truck, or even 86,000,000 Melody chocolates. For 99% of the world, this amount could change their lives and work miracles for them, especially for mathematicians, who work gruelling hours for somewhat average pay. Yet there was one mathematician who not only managed to chase the impossible but also rejected a million dollars and the biggest prize in mathematics. Grigori Perelman was born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in the Soviet Union in 1966. His mother was a mathematician who gave up a PhD to raise her child. Perelman's mathematical prowess was evident at an early age, and he was sent to a special school for mathematics. At 16, he won a gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad, the world's most prestigious mathematics competition. As an adult, Perelman decided to dabble in geometry. In his initial years, he worked on conve...