Millennium Problem

Millennium Problem, any of seven mathematical problems designated such by the Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) of Cambridge, Mass., U.S., each of which has a million-dollar reward for its solution. CMI was founded in 1998 by American businessman Landon T. Clay “to increase and disseminate mathematical knowledge.” The seven problems, which were announced in 2000, are the Riemann hypothesis, P versus NP problem, Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture, Hodge conjecture, Navier-Stokes equation, Yang-Mills theory, and Poincaré conjecture.

During 2002 and 2003 Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman published three papers over the Internet that gave a “sketchy” proof of the Poincaré conjecture. His basic proof was expanded by several mathematicians and universally accepted as valid by 2006. That year Perelman was awarded a Fields Medal, which he refused. Because Perelman published his papers over the Internet rather than in a peer-reviewed journal, as required by the CMI rules, he was not offered CMI’s award, though representatives for the organization indicated that they might relax their requirements in his case. Complicating any such decision was uncertainty over whether Perelman would accept the money; he publicly stated that he would not decide until the award was offered to him. In 2010 CMI offered Perelman the reward for proving the Poincaré conjecture, and Perelman refused the money.