Famous Unsolved Math Problems

[sandmoth12]

http://www.claymath.org/millennium/

Solve anyone of these and you get a million dollars, and probably a fair amount of fame along with lucrative job offers in the academic world.

I like the Riemann hypothesis and the P vs Np problem.

[Kujako]

I would... but there's just too much TV to watch.

[prwraith]

It's important to note it's not just math. It's essentially creating math to fit a theory that may or may not be true.

[Garnier Fructis]

It's as if someone announced his revolutionary discovery that P=NP implies N=1, and then critics soberly replied that, no, the equation P=NP can also be solved by P=0.

This reminds me of one of my favorite math jokes. ^

It's important to note it's not just math. It's essentially creating math to fit a theory that may or may not be true.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with creating new mathematics if you can show that it is logically consistent. So if the logical consistency of any new math can be demonstrated, then there's no question whether or not it's true. Also, math theories are pretty much true by construction.

Personally I like reading about the Navier Stokes problem. But then again, I just really like the subject of differential equations (I still have so much left to learn!).

[Blueobelisk]

I just knew it was the Millenium prize problems. Why don't you explain how someone actually solved one of the seven but didn't accept the prize money because he was such a genius that he said he didn't want to be indebted to anyone or have to live the false life that came with winning an award?

Anyway, since my tight knit group of friends in WoW were all smart status I talked to them about this a few years ago. My friend Thiago said "you want to solve one of those? You have a better chance of winning the lotto to win that money." The other said that you'd basically be on the realm of God to be able to understand these concepts. Never bothered attempting them seriously, but I liked Navier stokes fluid dynamics.

Still, I have to complain that it seems useless to open a thread like this just to mention the problems if you have no intention of leading the way to solve one.

[Mormolyce]

Word of warning: Poincare Conjecture has already had a proof provided by Perelman (who TURNED DOWN the $1m prize money on the grounds that he's an insane maths genius hermit type). I was actually studying pure maths right before that happened, everyone was talking about Ricci flow... interesting time to be a student haha.

Also, if you solve the P vs NP problem, laugh at the $1m as you sell the secret to organised crime, rogue nations, the KGB or CIA, for like $500 trillion. Or just choose to use it for world domination and become god emperor of mankind.

[Yvaelle]

Pfft, I can solve P = NP no problem, check this out math noobs:

P = NP
N = 1
QED

[skitzin]

Word of warning: Poincare Conjecture has already had a proof provided by Perelman (who TURNED DOWN the $1m prize money on the grounds that he's an insane maths genius hermit type). I was actually studying pure maths right before that happened, everyone was talking about Ricci flow... interesting time to be a student haha.

Also, if you solve the P vs NP problem, laugh at the $1m as you sell the secret to organised crime, rogue nations, the KGB or CIA, for like $500 trillion. Or just choose to use it for world domination and become god emperor of mankind.

China would pay much better than the CIA or KGB.

[Yvaelle]

China would pay much better than the CIA or KGB.

Especcially since the KGB no longer exists, and the CIA doesn't do spy stuff anymore - they just fly drones and assassinate people.

[Blueobelisk]

Pfft, I can solve P = NP no problem, check this out math noobs:

P = NP
N = 1
QED

Someone give this man a Nobel prize.

[skitzin]

Especcially since the KGB no longer exists, and the CIA doesn't do spy stuff anymore - they just fly drones and assassinate people.

Exactly. Not too mention the USA has budget issues these days.

[The One Percent]

Solve these and collapse the universe.

[Kujako]

And then I watched the last episode of Elementary, which was about mathematicians getting killed over P=NP.

[Laize]

It's important to note it's not just math. It's essentially creating math to fit a theory that may or may not be true.

This has been done dozens of times in the past.

This level of mathematics is far beyond my ken, but I know that whenever we run into stumbling blocks in mathematics, the appropriate course of action seems to be to ignore one or more previous laws of mathematics. Calculus, for example, was created as a way to essentially divide by zero and come up with a useful answer.

Wouldn't solving P=NP (if true) result in RSA encryption becoming all but useless?

[Kapaya]

Someone just watched last weeks Elementary!

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Someone give this man a Nobel prize.

There is no Nobel Prize for Mathematics. There is only a prize for each of physics, chemistry, medicine-physiology, literature, and peace.

[Deleted]

An interesting thing was that guy who solved one of those long-standing, unsolved mathematical problems and rejected a million dollars. He lived in an apartment in Russia, for those unfamiliar with the story.

[Kalis]

P=NP has been solved, but she was a murderer, so they didn't give her the money.

Lucy Liu has a great body, but her face? Not so much.

[Kujako]

Lucy Liu has a great body, but her face? Not so much.

I find the opposite to be true, but to each their own.

Overall, wasn't a bad episode, but as with many TV shows these days I had to restrain myself from yelling at the screen "computers do not work that way".

[Kalis]

I find the opposite to be true, but to each their own.

That's just crazy talk.

Sadly Elementary is just a bog standard crime procedural with Holmes as the main character, such a waste of the talents of Miller and Liu.

OT: Maths is hard.