Also fascinating is the story of the man that eventually proved the conjecture, Grigori Perelman [0], which famously later denied the $1M Millennium prize as well as the Fields medal where he is quoted as saying:
"The prize was completely irrelevant for me. Everybody understood that if the proof is correct then no other recognition is needed."
He later abandoned mathematics and returned to obscurity.
"The prize was completely irrelevant for me. Everybody understood that if the proof is correct then no other recognition is needed."
He later abandoned mathematics and returned to obscurity.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman