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Perelman

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8th January 2019 • Maths, morals, and character in the early work of Grigori Perelman. • Confidence: Empty speculation. • Content notes: anti-semitism, cruelty to children, literary cruelty to adults • Reading time: 10 mins. A review of ‘Perfect Rigour’ (2009) by Masha Gessen. ‘Perfect Rigour’ is not so much a biography: instead it’s a study of anti-Semitism in Russia, the viciousness of Soviet academia, and the wonderful subculture that lived uneasily within it. This subculture was the superhuman apolitical dreamland, mathematics. It could only exist because of sacrifices by famous and decent men, Kolmogorov and Aleksandrov. Their selective maths schools seem to have been the only nice places in the entire empire, at least for those with a taste for actual discussion, or unalloyed truth. (It can’t be a biography because the subject refused to talk to her, does things that are very hard to explain, and doesn’t go out much.) Even so, Gessen is well-placed to write this - she was

A review of ‘Perfect Rigour’ (2009) by Masha Gessen . ‘Perfect Rigour’ is not so much a biography: instead it’s a study of anti-Semitism in Russia, the viciousness of Soviet academia, and the wonderful subculture that lived uneasily within it. This subculture was the superhuman apolitical dreamland, mathematics. It could only exist because of sacrifices by famous and decent men, Kolmogorov and Aleksandrov . Their selective maths schools seem to have been the only nice places in the entire empire , at least for those with a taste for actual discussion, or unalloyed truth. (It can’t be a biograp

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