Tracking the World's Great Unsolved Math Mysteries

coondoggie writes "Some math problems are as old as the wind, experts say, and many remain truly unsolved. But a new open source-based site from the American Institute of Mathematics looks to help track work done and solve long-standing and difficult math problems. The Institute, along with the National Science Foundation, has opened the AIM Problem Lists site to offer an organized and annotated collection of unsolved problems, and previously unsolved problems, in a specialized area of mathematics research. The problem list provides a snapshot of the current state of research in a particular research area, letting experts track new developments, and newcomers gain a perspective on the subject."

Comments

Re:Math cannot exist before wind.

[hclewk]

First of all "as old as the wind" is just an expression means "really fricken old". It's obviously not meant to be taken literally, so get off your high horse.

Secondly,

If it is discovered, the solution already exists and the problem was solved before wind existed

Just because a solution exists, does not mean you have solved the problem. Think of it this way. You are looking through your telescope at night up at the stars and you notice a new star you have never seen before. You look at all the star-charts you can find and realize that no one has ever documented this star. You've just discovered it.

But you are saying that you did not discover the star, since the star already existed. Of course the solutions already exist for these math problems. However, discovery is the act of documenting an observation (ie, someone has to say "this is the answer"), so while they exist, no one has yet discovered them.