Conjecture

In mathematics, a conjecture is a conclusion or proposition based on incomplete information, for which no proof has been found. Conjectures such as the Riemann hypothesis (still a conjecture) or Fermat's Last Theorem (which was a conjecture until proven in 1995) have shaped much of mathematical history as new areas of mathematics are developed in order to prove them.

Important examples

Fermat's Last Theorem

In number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem (sometimes called Fermat's conjecture, especially in older texts) states that no three positive integers a, b, and c can satisfy the equation aⁿ + bⁿ = cⁿ for any integer value of n greater than two.

This theorem was first conjectured by Pierre de Fermat in 1637 in the margin of a copy of Arithmetica where he claimed he had a proof that was too large to fit in the margin.The first successful proof was released in 1994 by Andrew Wiles, and formally published in 1995, after 358 years of effort by mathematicians. The unsolved problem stimulated the development of algebraic number theory in the 19th century and the proof of the modularity theorem in the 20th century. It is among the most notable theorems in the history of mathematics and prior to its proof it was in the Guinness Book of World Records for "most difficult mathematical problems".

Brady Haran

Brady John Haran (born 18 June 1976) is an Australian independent film-maker and video journalist who is known for his educational videos and documentary films produced for BBC News and for his YouTube channels, such as Numberphile and Periodic Videos.

Career

Brady Haran studied journalism for a year before being hired by The Adelaide Advertiser. In 2002 he moved from Australia to Nottingham, United Kingdom. In Nottingham he worked for the BBC, began to work with film, and reported for East Midlands Today, BBC News Online and BBC radio stations.

In 2007, Haran worked as a filmmaker-in-residence for Nottingham Science City, as part of an agreement between the BBC and The University of Nottingham. His "Test Tube" project started with the idea of producing a documentary about scientists and their research, but he decided to upload his raw footage to YouTube; from that point "Periodic Videos" and "Sixty Symbols" were developed. Haran then left the BBC to work full-time making YouTube videos.

Collatz conjecture

The Collatz conjecture is a conjecture in mathematics named after Lothar Collatz, who first proposed it in 1937. The conjecture is also known as the 3n + 1 conjecture, the Ulam conjecture (after Stanisław Ulam), Kakutani's problem (after Shizuo Kakutani), the Thwaites conjecture (after Sir Bryan Thwaites), Hasse's algorithm (after Helmut Hasse), or the Syracuse problem; the sequence of numbers involved is referred to as the hailstone sequence or hailstone numbers (because the values are usually subject to multiple descents and ascents like hailstones in a cloud), or as wondrous numbers.

The conjecture can be summarized as follows. Take any positive integer n. If n is even, divide it by 2 to get n / 2. If n is odd, multiply it by 3 and add 1 to obtain 3n + 1. Repeat the process (which has been called "Half Or Triple Plus One", or HOTPO) indefinitely. The conjecture is that no matter what number you start with, you will always eventually reach 1. The property has also been called oneness.

Mathematical Sciences Research Institute

The Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), founded in 1982, is an independent nonprofit mathematical research institution whose funding sources include the National Science Foundation, foundations, corporations, and more than 90 universities and institutions. The Institute is located at 17 Gauss Way, on the University of California, Berkeley campus, close to Grizzly Peak, on the hills overlooking Berkeley.

History

MSRI was founded in 1982 by Shiing-Shen Chern, Calvin Moore, and Isadore M. Singer. MSRI hosts about 85 mathematicians and postdoctoral research fellows each semester for extended stays and holds programs and workshops, which draw approximately 2,000 visits by mathematical scientists throughout the year. Unlike many mathematical institutes, it has no permanent faculty or members, and its scientific activities are overseen by its Directorate and its Scientific Advisory Committee, a panel of distinguished mathematicians drawn from a variety of different areas of mathematical research.

Poincaré conjecture

In mathematics, the Poincaré conjecture (/pwɛn.kɑːˈreɪ/ pwen-kar-AY; French: [pwɛ̃kaʁe]) is a theorem about the characterization of the 3-sphere, which is the hypersphere that bounds the unit ball in four-dimensional space. The conjecture states:

An equivalent form of the conjecture involves a coarser form of equivalence than homeomorphism called homotopy equivalence: if a 3-manifold is homotopy equivalent to the 3-sphere, then it is necessarily homeomorphic to it.

Originally conjectured by Henri Poincaré, the theorem concerns a space that locally looks like ordinary three-dimensional space but is connected, finite in size, and lacks any boundary (a closed 3-manifold). The Poincaré conjecture claims that if such a space has the additional property that each loop in the space can be continuously tightened to a point, then it is necessarily a three-dimensional sphere. The analogous conjectures for all higher dimensions had already been proven.

After nearly a century of effort by mathematicians, Grigori Perelman presented a proof of the conjecture in three papers made available in 2002 and 2003 on arXiv. The proof built upon the program of Richard Hamilton to use the Ricci flow to attempt to solve the problem. Hamilton later introduced a modification of the standard Ricci flow, called Ricci flow with surgery to systematically excise singular regions as they develop, in a controlled way, but was unable to prove this method "converged" in three dimensions. Perelman completed this portion of the proof. Several teams of mathematicians verified that Perelman's proof was correct.