Mathematician Claims Proof of Riemann Hypothesis

TheSync points to this press release about a Purdue University mathematician, Louis de Branges de Bourcia, who claims to have "proven the Riemann hypothesis, considered to be the greatest unsolved problem in mathematics. It states that all non-trivial zeros of the zeta function lie on the line 1/2 + it as t ranges over the real numbers. You can read his proof here. The Clay Mathematics Institute offers a $1 million prize to the first prover."

Comments

Re:Apology

[badboy_tw2002]

Uh, the above comment was a joke people. The quote in the parent post does NOT appear in the document. Apology in this case means a defense of the proof.

Re:Proof of theory

[k98sven]

Interesting that the only time a proof of concept is ever challanged is when money is involved.

Bull. There are thousands of mathematical researchers. Most don't have hefty salaries, and most aren't working on money-prize problems.

Mathematicians are never in it for the money.

Wonder what he'll do with the money?

Seems like he wants to restore the old family castle:

The ruin of the chateau de Bourcia overlooks a fertile valley surrounded by wooded hills. The site is ideal for a mathematical research institute. The restoration of the ch^ateau for that purpose would be an appropriate use of the million dollars offered for a proof of the Riemann hypothesis.

I must say that at he seems a bit full of himself, or at least, getting a bit ahead of himself. Given how many have tried and failed witht his problem.

The media never learn?

[TorKlingberg]

Will the media keep publishing claims of extraordinary mathematical findings without checking the facts forever?

Just like this one over again:
Swedish Student Partly Solves 16th Hilbert Problem

That's what I like about /. If the article is wrong, there is always the comments there to solve it.

Re:Proof of theory

[the_2nd_coming]

huh?

Mathematicians have been working on this for a long time. it is not like one day this guy woke up and said "oh, 1 million dollars for it eh, well I better get to work."

Re:Good job

[nametaken]

You're probably right. But society does recognize a one million dollar prize. This one may actually get TV time. Funny how that works.

Re:Already failed once!

[pclminion]

So if a guy fails you should never listen to him again?

It took Einstein many tries to arrive at the correct fomulation for general relativity. I guess according to you, he should have just given up after his first failure?

Re:quick google search

[Lane.exe]

Not really. It means he's a prolific member of the community who is not afraid to take risks with his work. Consider an experimental scientist -- in an experiment, one that turns back negative results, or on that fails, still produces important data. Similarly, this is like "experimental mathematics." If he fails, then we'll know why he fails, how far he got doing things right and other things which can point us to the correct proof.

re:Already failed once

[Tsiangkun]

A long time ago, in the distant past, there were Finders. Dedicated individuals that wandered around outside the camps and found stuff. Over time, it became more difficult to find stuff, and the Finders became the Searchers. Many times the Searchers would return empty handed. As technologies improve and new insights are gained, the same fruitless searches of the past were repeated. Sometimes with a new results, sometimes as fruitless as before. Regardless, it was this not giving up on an idea just because it failed once that led the change in title from Searcher to Researcher.

Most reseachers I know produce one magnificent failure after another on the quest for a new piece of knowledge. Everything that is easy to find has probably already been discovered, and mathematics is no different. So the guy made a few failed attempts at solving the puzzle, this doesn't make each sucessor to the first attempt a garaunteed failure.

Re:Riemann hypothesis proof is useless

[Phleg]

Not to take away from the brilliant work of this guy, and I'm sure his work will have generated some good math on the way. But just knowing whether the Riemann hypothesis is true is not of much help (people have been assuming it to be true for a while).

Your comment explains why discovering a proof for the Riemann Hypothesis is such a monumental event. Mathematicians have assumed it to be true for some time now, and there exists a massive amount of mathematical theory which rests upon its validity. Proving the hypothesis ensures that their reasoning is on solid ground. Without one, there's no way to know for sure whether or not their conjectures are true.

Oh Hocky Sticks!!!!

[Dasein]

There's the occasional post that deserves to be modded to "+10 -- Best Damn Thing I've Read On Slashdot This Year".

Thanks!