Today, the Clay Mathematics Institute officially announced the award of the Millennium Prize to Perelman for the proof of the Poincare Conjecture. His proof was first posted to the arXiv back in 2002. In May 2006, a committee of nine mathematicians voted to award Perelman a Fields Medal for his work on the Poincaré conjecture.
No word on whether or not Grigori Perelman will accept the money, as this has been a question asked by many. Perelman has officially stated:
“I’m not going to decide whether to accept the prize until it is offered.”
So we should find out the answer soon.
The award of the Millennium Prize was made according to their governing rules:
- Recommendation first by a Special Advisory Committee (Simon Donaldson, David Gabai, Mikhail Gromov, Terence Tao, and Andrew Wiles)
- Recommendation by the CMI Scientific Advisory Board (James Carlson, Simon Donaldson, Gregory Margulis, Richard Melrose, Yum-Tong Siu, and Andrew Wiles)
- Final decision by the Board of Directors (Landon T. Clay, Lavinia D. Clay, and Thomas M. Clay).
Link: http://www.claymath.org/poincare/millenniumPrizeFull.pdf