MADRID, August 22 (RIA Novosti) - Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman has been awarded a Fields Medal, a version of the Nobel Prize, at the International Congress of Mathematicians.
Earlier in the day, some Russian media outlets cited the press service of the International Mathematical Union's congress in the Spanish capital when it reported that Perelman, who did not come to Madrid but was considered a favorite to win the award, had refused to receive it. The congress was due to announce the names of the laureates in the afternoon.
Three years ago, Perelman announced in St. Petersburg that he had solved a famous and intractable mathematical problem, known as the Poincare Conjecture, about the nature of space.
It is unclear, however, whether Perelman will receive the $1 million offered by the Clay Mathematics Institute for the first published proof of the solution.
