Grigory Perelman, a reclusive 43-year-old mathematician who lives with his mother in St. Petersburg, said Thursday that he had decided to reject a $1 million cash prize from a U.S. institute.

The “Millennium Prize” was awarded by the Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in March for Perelman’s proving of a theorem known as the Poincare conjecture.

Perelman blamed the “unjust” decisions of the “organized mathematician community” for his decision, saying American mathematician Richard Hamilton, ignored by the institute, had contributed to proving the theorem no less than Perelman himself.

Perelman said he notified the institute last week. The institute said in a statement that it would decide what to do with the money this fall.

(MT)