Math genius rejects attention after solving problems

[Richard Wallace]

Analogy is admittedly a weak form of argument, but I'll try it here anyway.

The difference between the practical science and technology that we celebrate and the abstract mathematics that Dr. Perelman does is like the difference between stonemasonry and sculpture.

Most of us here aspire to bring the world better techical solutions to real, present problems, and/or to celebrate the kind of career choices that lead to those solutions.

Dr. Perelman is more akin to an artist. He chose to work on the Poincare Conjecture just because it was there. His results may someday lead to a practical application, but that's not his interest. And like many artists he is not interested in fame.

The twentieth century Welsh poet Dylan Thomas captures this attitude well, I think, in this poem:

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labor by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.