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posted by
Fnord666
on Friday September 13 2019, @08:26PM
from the for-all-values-of-everything<113 dept.
from the for-all-values-of-everything<113 dept.
Submitted via IRC for chopchop1
The problem of 42 — at least as it relates to whether the number could be considered the sum of three cubes — has finally been solved. The question of whether every number under 100 could be expressed in this fashion has been a long-standing puzzle in the world of mathematics. Now, two mathematicians, Andrew Sutherland of MIT and Andrew Booker of Bristol, have jointly proven that 42 is indeed the sum of three cubes.
In the equation x3+y3+z3 = k, let x = -80538738812075974, y = 80435758145817515, and z = 12602123297335631. Plug it all in, and you get (-80538738812075974)3 + 804357581458175153 + 126021232973356313 = 42.
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Life, the Universe, and Math: 42 Proven to be the Sum of 3 Cubes
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To be a kind of moral Unix, he touched the hem of Nature's shift.
-- Shelley
(Score: 4, Insightful) by FatPhil on Friday September 13 2019, @11:19PM (1 child)
Nope. That's the most idiotic thing I've seen since 42 Jump Street[*]. The search space is the square of the middle number, for pity's sake. Naive residue filters will reduce the search space by a small constant factor.
Mathematicians in several different fields (number theory and computability) are interested in concepts such as whether Z^3+Z^3+Z^3 covers all admissible values (some are simply impossible, so are uninteresting), so removing a known absentee in the list is an interesting thing, as it reduces the space where non-solutions may hide. Yes, Heath-Brown was one of my lecturers. And you don't even know who he is, or why he's relevant, so just go away, troll.
[* Ballet School?]
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 13 2019, @11:56PM
Oh, wow, we're so impressed.