The problem that has plagued the mathematics field for 80 years has been solved.

After the legendary mathematician Zhang, another mathematician related to the "twin prime conjecture" won the Cole Prize, the highest prize in number theory.

At the age of 26, the mathematician not only reduced the upper limit of the prime interval in the conjecture from 70 million to 6 million, but also greatly optimized Zhang's results. Shortly before winning the Cole Prize, James Maynard, a young mathematician from Oxford University, cooperated with another mathematician to solve a difficult problem that puzzled mathematicians for nearly 80 years-Du Fen-Schaefer conjecture.

The conjecture put forward by Duffin and Schaeffer is: Let f: n→ r ≥ 0 be a positive real function, only if the series diverges (q >；; 0, φ(q) is an Euler function, indicating the number of positive integers that are less than q and coprime with q). For the irrational number α, there are infinite rational numbers, which satisfy the inequality | α-(p/q) |.

What is the twin prime conjecture?

The conjecture of twin prime numbers is a famous unsolved problem in number theory. This conjecture has a long history; In the famous report of mathematician Hilbert at 1900 international congress of mathematicians, it is listed as the eighth of 23 "Hilbert problems", which can be described by "there are infinitely many prime numbers P, and for each P, the number p+2 is also a prime number".

Twin prime numbers are a pair of prime numbers with a difference of 2. For example, 3 and 5, 5 and 7, 1 1 3, …, 100 16957 and 100 16959 are all twin prime numbers.

The prime number theorem shows that when a prime number tends to infinity, it tends to become scarce. Twin prime numbers have the same trend as prime numbers, and this trend is more obvious than prime numbers.

Because of the high popularity of the twin prime conjecture and its connection with Goldbach conjecture, many academic and mathematical enthusiasts try to prove it.