Book description
A thrilling account of an utterly brilliant and utterly eccentric
Russian mathematician which sheds a rare light on the unique burden of
genius In 2006, an eccentric Russian mathematician named Grigori
Perelman solved one of the world's greatest intellectual puzzles. The
Poincare conjecture is an extremely complex topological problem that
had eluded the best minds for over a century. In 1998, the Clay
Institute in Boston named it one of seven great unsolved mathematical
problems, and promised a million dollars to anyone who could find a
solution. Perelman will likely be awarded the prize this fall, and he
will likely decline it. Fascinated by his story, journalist Masha
Gessen was determined to find out why. Drawing on interviews with
Perelman's teachers, classmates, coaches, teammates, and colleagues in
Russia and the US - and informed by her own background as a math whiz
raised in Russia - she set out to uncover the nature of Perelman's
genius. What she found was a mind of unrivalled computational power,
one that enabled Perelman to pursue mathematical concepts to their
logical (sometimes distant) end. But she also discovered that this
very strength has turned out to be his undoing: such a mind is unable
to cope with the messy reality of human affairs. When the jealousies,
rivalries, and passions of life intruded on his Platonic ideal,
Perelman began to withdraw--first from the world of mathematics and
then, increasingly, from the world in general. In telling his story,
Masha Gessen has constructed a gripping and tragic tale that sheds
rare light on the unique burden of genius out to uncover the nature of
Perelman's genius.
Masha Gessen is a journalist who has written for Slate, Seed,
the New Republic, the New York Times, and other publications, and is
the author of two previous books.
