Slashdot Mirror
Indian Mathematician Takes Shot At Proving Riemann Hypothesis
First time accepted submitter jalfreize writes "Indian Mathematician Rohit Gupta (known by the moniker @fadesingh on twitter) has announced an online workshop which he intends to 'conclude by attacking an important problem in front of (the participants), in public view.' The problem is the Riemann Hypothesis, first proposed in 1859. Rohit outlines his approach based on quasicrystals first outlined by Freeman Dyson. His audacious plan, coupled with this recent news about quasicrystals, has kicked up a storm of interest in the Indian twitterverse."
wha?
Indians and math? Who said Indians can do math.... /epic troll
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Hot proof action! In public!
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I'll be watching the number of racist comments and unfunny "curry" comments on this thread with great interest.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Ramanujan said the goddess Lakshmi read the answers to him out of a book.
I won't hold my breath waiting on the proof.
But I certainly wish him the best.
There are thousands of proofs that begin with "Assuming the Riemann Hypothesis"
This seems interesting but details are hard to find. All I can ascertain is that the fee is 4900 INR (~110 USD). The start date appears to be Oct 19th, but there's no estimate of the schedule except a listed end date of May 5th 2016. There's similarly no information about the delivery format. If anyone has more info, please post here.
...the only place you'll soon be able to afford medical care. :-P
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
He will talk about quasicrystals and the Riemann hypothesis, not lambda calculus.
Because it sounds like something Geordi or Data would say at the end of a TNG episode.
Two of the major problems (Fermat's Last Theorum and the Poincaire Conjecture) have been cracked in recent times. A third major breakthrough is not impossible, particularly in a nation that has produced some superb minds in the past.
True, India has developed a bad reputation as a result of the call centers and the crappy software engineering, but that's like dissing the engineers developing the PCI Express and HyperTransport specifications because GM can't make a decent car or Bank of America can't provide anything remotely close to service. The subjects are wholly unrelated and you can draw no conclusions about one from the other. (India still runs a better train service than Amtrak, though that should not be considered credit to either.)
Mathematics doesn't require advanced infrastructure and is better done in peace with no distractions.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Riemann Hypothesis Takes Shot At Crushing Indian Mathematician
The Riemann Hypothesis (known by the moniker @unsolvable on twitter) has announced an online workshop which it intends to 'conclude by attacking an important mathematician in front of (the participants), in public view.' The mathematician is the Rohit Gupta. The hypothesis outlines its approach based on previous failed attempts, conserved in quasicrystals of the tears of previously broken mathematicians. Its audacious plan, coupled with this recent news about quasicrystals, has kicked up a storm of interest in the Indian twitterverse.
Jesus, I could announce the same damn thing - can I be a Slashdot headline too?
If he succeeds, then it's news. In the meantime, please stop wasting my precious bandwidth!
I have great respect to mathematics. Itâ(TM)s one of the few disciplines left were bs doesnâ(TM)t fly (for long), unlike, for example, economics and political science.
This is a cheap publicity stunt, nothing more. Mathematics is not dancing with the stars or what not. This is a serious scientific problem a century and a half old. If you make a mistake in your âoeproofâ, the public wonâ(TM)t be able to notice. He hopes to be able to publicly claim success, even if his solution will be disproved later (with much less publicity). The proper way to do this is to publish your proof in a peer-reviewed journal and wait to see if other mathematicians find a flaw in your argument. His approach is cheap, unscientific publicity stunt.
I got bored this afternoon and did the proof a few different ways. Unfortunately, the details won't fit in this comment box.
Jesus, I could announce the same thing - can I be a Slashdot headline?
Come back when he solves it.
Hey, the Foldit programmers were able to model protein structures for Foldit players to solve that even the most advanced computers couldn't.
Perhaps a quasi-crystal simulator that one can manipulate and this create mathematical solutions? (Not a mathematician so dunno if that's feasible)
You know you're good when the mere fact that you'll be attempting to do something is newsworthy. Either that, or your marketing and/or self-promotion is good.
WTF is an Indian twitterverse?
Rohit Gupta: "I have a truly marvelous proof of the Riemann Hypothesis which this TV show is too short to contain. But at least I know I proved it."
---
The Riemann Hypothesis is roughly the following: There's a function defined by zeta(s)= 1 + 1/1^s + 1/2^s + 1/3^s + 1/4^s... You can make this function make sense for any complex number as long as it has real part greater than 1. However, this series does not converge for s less than or equal to 1 1. However, it turns out that this function has what is called an "analytic continuation" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_continuation. Essentially it is possible to make a function on the complex plane that is smooth (in the sense of being infinitely differential), and agrees with this function everywhere. This function is known as the Riemman Zeta Function. The only caveat is that one cannot give a sensible definition for the value at s=1. (Essentially as s gets near 1, the value of the function goes to infinity).
It turns out that the behavior of zeta is deeply related to the prime numbers because of another way of writing the above series as a product over the prime numbers. So for example, a major triumph of 19th century math was showing that this function was not zero anywhere on the line with real part of s =1. This implied an approximate estimate for the size of the nth prime number called the prime number theorem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number_theorem.
The Riemann hypothesis is a much stronger claim about where the zeta function is zero. It turns out that it is very easy to show that the zeta function is zero at every negative even integer. These are the trivial zeros, There are other, more difficult to locate zeros. The hypothesis conjectures that these zeros all lie on the line with real part equal to 1/2. That is, every zero is of the form 1/2 + it where t is some real number. If this is true many nice things will follow.
Most people who have thought about this question believe that it is true. There's a lot of evidence for it, such as the fact that literally billions of zeros have been located on this line, and the fact that it can be shown in a certain sense that almost all the non-trivial zeros lie near the 1/2 line. We also know that in a certain sense a positive fraction of the non-trivial zeros need to lie on the line (one needs to be careful here with what this means since there are infinitely many such zeros).
There are a lot of current attempts to prove the Riemann Hypothesis, and some very serious mathematicians think that the quasicrystal approach might work. Right now there are a lot of different approaches, including some which connect the hypothesis to certain claims in quantum mechanics. However, at this point, despite the many attempts there are a lot of weaker claims that we can't prove that we'd expect to prove before the Riemann hypothesis. It turns out that all the non-trivial zeros need to have a real part strictly between 0 and 1. But we can't even prove what essentially amounts to the worst case scenario, that there are zeros arbitrarily near the 0 and 1 lines. I expect this to be dealt with well before the full Riemann hypothesis is proven. There are other weaker hypotheses that are implied by RH that one would also expect to be proven first. So far the quasicrystal approach sounds promising but has had very little in the way of actual fruit. But this may just be that it is a relatively new set of tools and they need to be carefully developed. Overall, I'd be surprised if this project works simply because even if a quasicrystal approach eventually proves the full result it will require so much stuff to happen before hand.
If you can prove the Reimann hypothesis, do it, collect the $1000000 millennium prize and then millions more in speaking deals, chaired positions at top universities etc.
If you can't prove the Reimann hypothesis, charge $10 a head for people to watch you talk about quasicrystal nonsense.
The point being if he actually had any legitimate chance at doing this, this is not the format he would choose.
He's doing this to raise money for research. I don't think he expects to solve it 'live on TV infront of a studio audience'. It's more like an opportunity for others to be educated about the Riemann hypothesis.
and i have no idea what the hell they are saying. wicked smash innit? thems Cockney barrow boy spivs theyis!
but i can understand almost any Indian i hear speaking English.
i actually understood most of that.
why can't people like you write the wikipedia math articles?
...when he has a wardrobe malfunction, and we see an elaborate tattoo of Riemann and the zeta function on his naked body as he pours kerosine over himself, and he strikes a match and shrieks the final step of his ingenious proof while engulfed in flames!
Anyone remember Geraldo Rivera's live TV special to open Al Capone's vault? This reminds me a lot of that.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Thank you very much for Indian Mathematician information
The reason I posted this bit of news, is the rather unconventional crowd-sourcing/collaboration approach to science, coupled with the idea of involving non-specialists in his attempt. Would like more informed opinions on this approach to doing science. Even if he fails at the attempt, would, say, a person with an engineering background participating in such a workshop stand to gain anything?
Is this a ponzi scheme or good science with a dash of showmanship thrown in?
Well said sir!
It looks like someone is still trying to complete their Perplex City card set! :p
"Registration: You can contact me directly by email (fadebox AT gmail ) for payment or any other details, or just go to this online ticketing facility I'm using called DoAttend if you have decided to join. You don't have to register at DoAttend as a user, the site will take you to the payment gateway directly. I am also accepting sponsors and private donors if you wish to contribute more than the workshop fee. Once you register, you'll be added to the mailing list in a couple of days. "
http://fadereu.posterous.com/knk103-the-crystals-of-mt-zeta
Here are some troublesome points. He claims here http://fadereu.posterous.com/knk101-symmetry-workshop-meet-the-advisory-pa that a couple of his "inventions" are part of "university-level syllabi in subjects like Aerospace Engineering." However, a quick search for this inventions reveals that the first one is actually a cell phone application for text-messaging. Why would that be in an "Aerospace Engineering" syllabus? Disclaimer: I went to a different campus of the same school that he claims to have attended for his undergraduate studies.