Lex Fridman

What do you think of him famously declining the Fields Medal and the Millennial Prize?

So he stated, I'm not interested in money or fame.

The prize is completely irrelevant to me.

If the proof is correct, then no other recognition is needed.

What do you think of him turning down the prize?

I do think I have a similar thing just observing Olympic athletes that are in many cases don't get paid very much and they nevertheless dedicate their entire lives for the pursuit of the gold medal.

I think his case is a reminder that some of the greatest mathematicians, some of the greatest scientists and human beings do the thing they do, take on these problems for the love of it.

not for the prizes or the money or any of that.

Now, as you're saying, if the money comes, you could use it for stuff.

If the prizes come and the fame and so on, that might be useful.

But the reason fundamentally the greats do it is because of the art itself.

Yeah, it's great.

It's great.

I mean, I'm pretty sure you don't contribute to math overflow for the wealth and the power that you gain.

I mean, it's genuine, genuine curiosity.

And so, of course, we should use math overflow score because... That you're definitively, I mean, nobody objectively the greatest mathematician of all time.

Oh, man.

Well, that's the only way to judge a person, I think.

That's, I think, objectively correct.

I mean, since you're bringing up chess, I got to ask you about infinite chess.