 grigori yakovlevich perelman ( ; ; born 13 june 1966) is a russian mathematician who made landmark contributions to riemannian geometry and geometric topology before his presumed withdrawal from mathematics. in 1994, perelman proved the soul conjecture. in 2003, he proved thurston's geometrization conjecture. this consequently solved in the affirmative the poincarÃ© conjecture, posed in 1904, which before its solution was viewed as one of the most important and difficult open problems in topology. in august 2006, perelman was awarded the fields medal for "his contributions to geometry and his revolutionary insights into the analytical and geometric structure of the ricci flow." perelman declined to accept the award or to appear at the congress, stating: "i'm not interested in money or fame; i don't want to be on display like an animal in a zoo." on 22 december 2006, the scientific journal science recognized perelman's proof of the poincarÃ© conjecture as the scientific "breakthrough of the year", the first such recognition in the area of 
1966_births 20th-century_mathematicians 21st-century_mathematicians Differential_geometers Fellows_at_the_University_of_California,_Berkeley Fields_Medalists International_Mathematical_Olympiad_participants Living_people New_York_University_staff People_from_Saint_Petersburg Russian_Jews Russian_mathematicians Saint_Petersburg_State_University_alumni Soviet_Jews Soviet_mathematicians Topologists