SUM MISHTAKE... SURELY

04-09-2006

Pete Millington on the Russian mathematician who's turning his back on a fortune after discovering the shape of the universe.

The international media recently reported the story of Grigory Perelman, a reclusive Russian mathematician who turned down one of the most revered honours in the world of mathematics.

Perelman was awarded the 2006 Fields Medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians for proving the elusive Poincaré Conjecture

Alongside the award, which is considered to be the equivalent of a Nobel prize, the world's brainiest man may also be about to turn down an additional prize of £1 million from the Clay Mathematics Institute.

40 year old Grigory, (Igor to his mother with whom he lives in St Petersburg and Greg to former school chums) has spent over three years trying to figure out the solution to a problem that has stumped the world's greatest mathematicians for a century.

Known as the Poincare conjecture, the problem isconcerned with the study of topology and multi dimensional shapes in space.

Peers of clever Igor from the International Mathematical Union suggest that his breakthrough could even solve the mystery of the shape of the universe, which up until now was commonly believed to be two massive three-dimensional digits, zillions of billions of light years long, representing the number 42

Though reclusive Igor remains difficult to track down for a comment, we did manage to catch up with his mom in the supermarket queue at Mosmart.

Mrs P gave us this brief statement:

“Igor has always been a very clever but quiet little boy. Yes I know he is isolating himself from the international mathematics community, but for me the bigger problem is he spends too much time in his bedroom on his computer. The electric bills are phenomenal, how is a poor Russian mother to cope?

“Even if he would go on Millionaire it would be better than nothing, but who can blame him, he claims Chris Tarrant has the answers on a card in front of him… Igor doesn't suffer fools you know!”

But the big question on everyone's lips remains the shape of the universe, we asked Mrs P if she could give us a small hint about Igor's findings:

“Well these things are over my head generally, Igor has given up trying to explain it to me. He said it's something about a massive doughnut with a picture of a face clearly formed in the sugar coating….

…Igor's checked it several times on his computer and he says ...

…it's definitely Elvis Presley”