Russian reclusive math genius Grigory Perelman rejected a $1 million prize for solving a problem that has puzzled scientists for over a century, the Clay Mathematics Institute said on its website on Thursday.
"Dr. Perelman has subsequently informed us that he has decided not to accept the one million dollar prize. In the fall of 2010, CMI will make an announcement of how the prize money will be used to benefit mathematics," the institute said.
In March 2010, the Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) of Cambridge, Massachusetts, announced that Perelman, 43, would be awarded the prize for proving the Poincare conjecture, one of seven problems on the institute's Millennium Prize list.
In June, Perelman did not appear at a ceremony in Paris to collect the prize and did not inform CMI about his decision regarding the money.
The Poincare conjecture, which was first proposed by Henri Poincare in 1904, says that a three-sphere is the only type of bounded three-dimensional space possible that contains no holes.
Perelman presented proof on the conjecture in 2002 and 2003. Several high-profile teams of mathematicians have since verified the correctness of his proof.
In 2006, Perelman refused to attend a congress in Madrid where he was to receive a Fields Medal, often called the Nobel Prize of mathematics.
Perelman, who lives in a small apartment in St. Petersburg with his elderly mother, is unemployed and neighbors say he lives in poverty. He has rejected job offers at several top U.S. universities.
ST. PETERSBURG, July 1 (RIA Novosti)
