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One of the most important unsolved problems in mathematics may have been solved, retired mathematician Michael Atiyah is set to claim on Monday. In a talk at the Heidelberg Laureate Forum in Germany, Atiyah will present what he refers to as a "simple proof" of the Riemann hypothesis, a problem which has eluded mathematicians for almost 160 years.
Born in 1929, Atiyah is one of the UK's most eminent mathematical figures, having received the two awards often referred to as the Nobel prizes of mathematics, the Fields medal and the Abel Prize. He also, at various times, served as president of the London Mathematical Society, the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
If a solution to the Riemann hypothesis is confirmed, it would be big news. Among other things, the hypothesis is intimately connected to the distribution of prime numbers, those indivisible by any whole number other than themselves and one. If the hypothesis is proven to be correct, mathematicians would be armed with a map to the location of all such prime numbers, a breakthrough with far-reaching repercussions in the field.
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[RELATED]:
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @08:29AM (6 children)
Isn't the hypothesis the "map" and a proof means that it's correct? What prevented people from using the map regardless on whether or not it was correct? Like using Sqrt[a^2+b^2] = c, but we can't prove it (Pythagorean theorem).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Saturday September 22 2018, @10:22AM (3 children)
If you use an incorrect map, you might not arrive at the correct place.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Lester on Saturday September 22 2018, @11:28AM (1 child)
A mathematician may have been working for years assuming the hypothesis is true. If the hypothesis is wrong, he is nowhere and has wasted a lot of time. But if the hypothesis is true, he is where nobody has ever been before.
It is related to primes and so probably related to encryption. Let's suppose he works for NSA or KGB. The organizations that had mathematicians working assuming the hypothesis is true have now a big advantage. I bet they have a lot of people working on this and other not yet probed hypothesis. And maybe applying them as long as empirical results are correct so far.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ants_in_pants on Sunday September 23 2018, @12:53AM
RH really isn't relevant to cryptography. If its truth/falseness were related to prime factorization, it would be, but as far as I know it's not.
Also, in this case RH should be a given for anybody doing anything practical involving it. No counterexample has ever been found.
-Love, ants_in_pants
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @12:16PM
I get that, but physicists did a lot of work before confirmation of the Higgs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @12:08PM
Wouldn't that be C^2?
(Score: 1) by I prefer tim on Monday September 24 2018, @02:31PM
There are several proofs for the Pythagorean theorem, Pythagoras was in fact the first to prove it.
http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/EMT668/EMT668.Student.Folders/HeadAngela/essay1/Pythagorean.html [uga.edu]