It’s a shame they had to close the question, though I understand that exchanges have strict rules about question formats (for good reason). But it’s be nice to get more context on this
I'm not sure what you're driving at here. But Atiyah was suffering from dementia by this point and the math community was just too embarrassed to address it directly. They even let him give a talk on his RH proof where he further embarrassed himself.
That is interesting information and I will look further into that as you raised my curiosity. I watched the video of his presentation and could not see signs of dementia.
If that is as you say then the math community exponentially embarrassed themselves by discussing the mathematical details of his proofs. Did they also do that out of respect for him ?
http://empslocal.ex.ac.uk/people/staff/mrwatkin/zeta/RHproof...