Anyone baffled by the Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman’s decision to refuse his discipline’s highest honor—the Fields Medal—should read an article in this week’s New Yorker. The article, “Manifold Destiny,” describes the bitter interpersonal disputes that have divided the field over who should get credit for astonishing feats—such as solving the Poincaré conjecture, for which Mr. Perelman was to be honored—that only a handful of specialists can even begin to understand.

Thanks to the deft writing of the article’s co-authors, however, even those of us whose math education screeched to a halt with the quadratic equation can appreciate what Mr. Perelman accomplished and why, this week, he was a no-show when the International Mathematical Union presented the Fields Medal to three other scholars (The Chronicle, August 23). For more on the Poincaré conjecture, see an article in Slate about why its solution matters (The Chronicle, August 25).