A reclusive Russian mathematician has been awarded a million dollars for proving a theory which has baffled some of the finest brains for a century. Grigory Perelman came up with the Poincare conjecture which helps in the understanding of three-dimensional shapes. It is one of seven so-called Millennium Problems set out by the Massachusetts-based Clay Mathematics Institute which offered a prize for the solution of any of them. But Perelman who lives in St. Petersburg has little contact with the outside world and is known for ignoring plaudits for his work. He actually first put forward his theory eight years ago, and in 2006 he received mathematics' most prestigious prize, The Fields medal, which he refused to collect. We are now joined live by Sir John Ball. He's the former president of the International Mathematical Union and knows the genius personally.