This is Grigori Perelman, the mathematician who declined both the Fields Medal and the $1,000,000 Clay Prize.
Perelman is a Russian mathematician who became internationally famous after proving the Poincare Conjecture, one of the Clay Mathematics Institutes seven Millennium Problems, and then astonishing the academic world by declining every major honor that followed.
In 2006 he refused the Fields Medal, explaining that he did not like the spectacle surrounding awards and believed that the mathematical community had behaved unfairly in handling credit for the proof. In 2010 he turned down the Clay Institutes prize of 1,000,000 dollars for the same achievement, stating that he felt no interest in money or fame and did not consider the recognition appropriately shared with other mathematicians who had contributed to the field.
He withdrew entirely from professional mathematics soon afterward, choosing a private life in Saint Petersburg while remaining an almost mythical figure known for unmatched brilliance and complete indifference to public acclaim.
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