The beginning of the 21st century was marked with a staggering event, when this beautiful mind, ingenious in his field, resolved one of the mysteries in mathematics, unsolvable for nearly 100 years, Poincare Conjecture.
The Poincare Conjecture concerned the geometry of multidimensional spaces, had broad implications for relativity and quantum physics and helped to explain the shape of the universe. Regarded by many as both the cleverest and the craziest person on the planet, this man first came to the world’s attention a few years ago when it was announced that he’d solved an unsolvable maths problem.
For almost one century, the Conjecture had baffled the sharpest minds in maths, many of whom had claimed its proof, only to have their work discarded after additional critical observation. The problem had broken spirits, wasted lives. By the time that Perelman defeated the conjecture, after many years of concentrated mental effort, the Poincare had affected Grigori so severely that he ended up broken too.He cut off his contacts with his friends, started to grow beard and nails, retired at home with his mother and icing on the cake was his decision to give up on his job. A year later he declined a Field medal, the top award in mathematics and a few years later some evil tongues pronounced him the craziest man in the world when he turned down a million dollar award, explaining about himself that he was not an animal in the zoo to be displayed in all newspapers and magazines.
Now, he is man who lives with his mother, has no income, resides in a small dwelling with his mother's pension. When a journalist stole a moment to ask him: "Why did you refuse an award of a million?", Grigori simply replied: " All that I have is enough! Now that I have penetrated into the secret of the Universe, I do not need that money!". In addition the journalist perceived strong bond and respect between Grigori and his mother.
Many people who know him in one way or another pity him, however, I personally feel that he should not be pitied as he may have extracted one of the most important implication of the resolution of Poincare Conjecture. Perhaps, by means of mathematical equations and methods Grigori has reached the point where he concluded what our universe actually is, and maybe even more: what our role in the global picture is!
One of the most difficult issues in science is to formulate the right implication of the theorems in maths. For example, one practical application of Schroedinger wave function, which is actually one implication of it, as for Ron Garret(a software engineer and a physicist), is that our universe is not real. (if you want to know more click here). Now, the question is imposed: Is this implication ( the fact that our Universe is not real) true? How to prove that this implication is true? Answers should be left to analysts....
It is not only Grigori who is referred to as "crazy". Throughout our history we have seen ample ingenious individuals swinging over the fine line between their genius and insanity: Ludwig Von Beethoven and Winston Churchill had Bipolar disorder; Leo Tolstoy was depressive; Isaac Newton suffered from "everything", he had frequent ups and downs in a mood, indicating bipolar disorder;Charles Dickens, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill all suffered from clinical depression, and so many more...Nikola Tesla gave up his normal life and decided to commit himself to a science, all alone without a family and steady income. He claimed that it is not he who invented all those marvelous machines, on the contrary, something or someone from somewhere is sending bits of information to him which would not let him sleep more than 2 hours a day...
A vast majority of us, humans, would simply reason that all ingenious individuals are crazy a bit and it is normal to assume that weirdness, genius and insanity go hand in hand, but no one asks himself: Why must they all exist together?
In our limited 3-dimensional world to turn down wealth, a beautiful and charming spouse, stable future, means that you are a weirdo..."Seeing" things with your eyes, "hearing" sounds with your ears(which are symptoms for people with schizophrenia) that do not exist in our Reality, do not exclude other Reality that only few are "entitled" to meet, and once they encounter it, they consider our Reality irrelevant and meaningless. Simply: Being crazy in our reality, does not negate being connected with some other Reality, much more "realistic" when we engage in it!
If interested in a concept of different realities check this
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