[anatoly]

> This is a pretty big stretch. The Russian language defines 3 tiers of familiarity/address: a nickname for family/friends, a full first name for acquaintances of the same age, and a full first + patronymic name for everyone else. (This is similar to a French person being offended by an overly familiar "Tu" when a "Vous" is appropriate). Moreover, it is not uncommon anywhere to use a nickname in correspondence with friends and colleagues and a full name in more formal situations.

Perelman signed his _papers_ "Grisha Perelman". That's about as formal an occasion for a mathematician as it gets. The paper is the claim for posterity. It's what the next generations of mathematicians will read. It's not impossible to imagine a mathematician who'd sign his mathematical papers as "Bob Green", but then be strongly offended by being so identified in the media, but it's very, very unlikely.

Also, "Grisha" is no more a nickname than "Bob" or "Bill" (that is, they all can be considered nicknames, but aren't usually what we mean by a nickname in its more common sense). They're familiar forms. It's not unheard of for a Russian scientist to adopt their familiar form as the preferential first name, even in formal situations, in English-language cultures. E.g. Misha Verbitsky, Sasha Razborov... you can easily google many more examples.

Obviously I disagree with you about the first link grasping at straws. In particular, mekhmat vs matmekh alone is damning. This difference between the names of the two most prestigious math departments in Moscow vs St. Petersburg is legendary. It's next to impossible for an alumnus of mekhmat to refer to his alma mater as matmekh or vice versa.

> Apparently, the Israeli paper was able to find the interviewer... not particularly surprising given that he had moved to Israel in the 90's.

They didn't find him in the sense that they weren't able to contact him, as they explain; I didn't mean to claim that the name or the person were nonexistent.

[capstone]

I don't know about this. My father is a scientist, and while he signs his correspondence as Sasha, he publishes under Alexander. As for метмах vs. матмех - it could easily be Perelman having a dyslexic moment, or the journalist misquoting. All these "clues" are so nitpicky... not worth a conspiracy theory IMHO.

You are right about nicknames though. I used it in a colloquial sense but the correct term would be a familiar form.