Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

What is the Oldest Unsolved Math Problem?

Posted by Cliff on from the mysteries-of-the-unknown-starring-peter-graves dept.

evilquaker asks: "After finding a reference to the (still open) odd perfect number problem, which is claimed to date back to Euclid, I wondered: what are the oldest unsolved math problems? The folklore answer is that the odd perfect number problem is the only one posed by the Greeks which is still open. However, it seems there is some doubt as to whether Euclid actually wondered about odd perfect numbers. Further, there's a claim that the twin primes conjecture dates back to the Greeks. So what's the oldest documented still-open math problem? Perhaps something about Fibonacci numbers?"

2 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. sci.math by SpatchMonkey · · Score: 5, Informative

    This question has already been debated quite extensively in the newsgroup sci.math.

    It's quite an interesting read!

  2. Hard to say since Library of Alexendria burned by GuyMannDude · · Score: 5, Informative

    I know you are asking for the oldest documented math problem, but do remember that the Great Library of Alexandria was burned down by an angry mob. That library housed most of the world's knowledge up until that point. So documentation of any super-old problem was probably destroyed in the fire.

    By the way, a search on google for "oldest unsolved math problem" comes up with this page which states

    PROOF OF THE INFINITUDE OF PERFECT NUMBERS (IPN). The IPN is either the second oldest, or the oldest unsolved problem of mathematics (debatable with the No Odd Perfect Number Problem), and this proof will easily evince anyone why it is one of the two oldest unsolved math problems.

    So I guess the IPN is a contender.

    GMD

    --
    watch this