Building

Construction and deconstruction of surfaces.

Video: Endre Tveitan
Audio: Lars Lervik

Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman

Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman (Russian: Григорий Яковлевич Перельман), born 13 June 1966 in Leningrad, USSR (now St. Petersburg, Russia), sometimes known as Grisha Perelman, is a Russian mathematician who has made landmark contributions to Riemannian geometry and geometric topology. In particular, it appears that he has proven Thurston's geometrization conjecture. If so, this solves in the affirmative the famous Poincaré conjecture, posed in 1904 and regarded as one of the most important and difficult open problems in mathematics. In August 2006, Perelman was awarded the Fields Medal, which is widely considered to be the top honor a mathematician can receive. However, he declined to accept the award or appear at the congress. What is he doing now? Apparently living with his mother and playing video games.