Grisha — On the genius we would never know!
Over the weekend, I read Perfect Rigour by Masha Gessen. A brief summary of Grigori Perelman’s life, including his journey to prove the Poincare Conjecture and subsequent exile. He also disproves of the one million dollar reward and the highly regarded medal for solving it.
This book is more than just a triumphant life story. The catch is that the author, investigative journalist Masha Gessen, never really met Perelman while writing the book. Masha pieced together this masterwork from the recollections of Perelmen’s closest friends, family members, mentors, and other people who had previous touch with the mysterious genius.
The book’s focus is less on the advanced mathematics discussed than on the lives and work of mathematicians, particularly Russian mathematicians. This non-fiction explores the phenomenon of social pressures coalescing to produce a genius. The anti-Semitic political system, his mother’s tight schedule for math club, his father’s zeal for chess, the strict regime of his Olympiad mentor, and the professors pushing for his entrance all contributed to his development into a Jewish genius.
The author skillfully portrays a man of impeccable integrity who not only solves one of the most difficult mathematical problems but also refuses to accept any credit for his accomplishments, believing instead that Hamilton deserves equal credit for contributing to his achievement. Instead of publishing the solutions in a journal, Perelman made them freely available to the public on arxiv preprint server.
The story ends with a mockery to the so-called mathematical societies, who gather to present the Clay prize to this young genius and celebrates this milestone.But this gathering didn’t have two people, Hamilton and Perelman.
Masha Gessen brings out an amazing account of a non-fictional subject. Masha is a brilliant storyteller who wrote about a genius we would never know.
