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Shattered Genius | Brett Forrest

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Girgori Perelman is one of the greatest mathematicians of our time, a Russian genius who solved the Poincaré Conjecture, which plagued the brightest minds for a century. At the height of his fame, he refused a million-dollar reward for his work. Then he disappeared. Our writer hunts him down on the streets of St. Petersburg. I HAD NEVER BEEN ON A STAKEOUT, but I knew how it was done. I took a book. I brought a few sandwiches. I flipped on the radio and listened to the traffic report in Russian. That kept me awake as I waited for the mathematician. ​ I’d first heard of Grigori Yakolevich Perelman about nine years ago as news of his achievement leaked beyond the international mathematics community into popular headlines. Word was that someone had solved an unsolvable math problem. The Poincaré conjecture concerns three-dimensional spheres, and it has broad implications for spatial relations and quantum physics, even helping to explain the shape of the universe. For nearly 100 years the c

--> Shattered Genius | Brett Forrest top of page Shattered Genius Girgori Perelman is one of the greatest mathematicians of our time, a Russian genius who solved the Poincaré Conjecture, which plagued the brightest minds for a centur y. At the height of his fame, he refused a million-dollar reward for his work. Then he disappeared. Our writer hunts him down on the streets of St. Petersburg. I HAD NEVER BEEN ON A STAKEOUT, but I knew how it was done. I took a book. I brought a few sandwiches. I flipped on the radio and listened to the traffic report in Russian. That kept me awake as I wa

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