From June 5, 2004 to 10, a piece of science news spread like wildfire in the domestic media:
"1+ 1=2 was chosen as the greatest formula."
It turns out that the famous British science magazine Physical World held a unique selection activity before, inviting readers from all over the world to choose their greatest and favorite formulas, theorems or laws. As a result, many people were surprised.
What's more, 1+ 1=2, a basic mathematical formula known to primary school students, was not only selected, but also ranked seventh. A Canadian reader gave his reason: "This simplest formula has a wonderful aesthetic feeling." This choice
The host commented: "The power of the great formula not only discusses the basic characteristics of the universe and conveys symbolic information, but also tries its best to breed more scientific breakthroughs in nature."
Coincidentally, in 197 1, Nicaragua issued a set of commemorative stamps entitled "Ten Mathematical Formulas for Changing the World", and it was this "1+ 1=2" that ranked first.
1+ 1=2 is so important because it is a basic formula about numbers. Without it, there would be no mathematics at all, let alone other natural sciences such as physics and chemistry. Numbers appeared as early as the age of ignorance, and people
In the storage and distribution of prey and other activities, the sense of quantity gradually appeared. When a primitive man faces three sheep, three apples or three arrows together, he will vaguely realize that there is a kind of * * *. As you can imagine, he will be at this time
What a surprise. However, it took a very long time from this primitive feeling to the formation of the abstract concept of "number"
It is generally believed that the formation of the concept of natural numbers may be as old as the use of fire, with a history of at least 300 thousand years. Now, we can't find out when human beings invented addition, because there was not enough detailed literature at that time (
Maybe words have just been born). But the appearance of addition is undoubtedly to perform operations when exchanging goods or prisoners of war. As for multiplication and division, it must be based on addition and subtraction. And the score should be the need to divide the object. should do
It should be said that when a primitive man first realized 1+ 1=2, and then realized that two numbers were added to get another definite number, this moment was a great moment of human civilization, because he discovered a very important property-additivity. this
This property and its extension are the whole foundation of mathematics. It even tells us why mathematics is widely used and its limitations.
People now know that there are three different things in the world. One is the quantity that completely satisfies additivity. Such as mass, the total mass of gas in a container is always equal to the sum of the masses of each gas molecule. For these quantities, 1+ 1=2 is completely true.
Yes The second category is the quantity that only partially satisfies additivity. For example, temperature, if the gases in two containers are combined, the temperature of the combined gases is the weighted average of the respective temperatures of the original gases (this is a generalized "addition").
But there is a problem here: the amount of temperature is not completely additive, because a single molecule has no temperature. There are still some things in the world that completely reject additivity, such as neurons in the life world.
We can divide the molecules in the container into two containers, so that the gas in each container still has macroscopic quantities-temperature, pressure, etc. But we can't do this to neurons. Each of us will feel happy and painful.
Go to sleep. Biology tells us that these feelings are produced by neurons. However, we can't say how much happiness or pain a neuron will produce. Not only does not every neuron have this property, but we can't split the brain in two.
Half, so that every hemisphere has happiness or pain. Neurons are not molecules-molecules can be separated or recombined at any time, and neurons have coordination. Once separated, life is over, and it is impossible to reunite. Although the current mathematics
It has been developed for 5000 years, but it is still mainly based on additivity. When we encounter these problems that do not satisfy additivity, we often find it difficult to deal with them by mathematics. This reflects the limitations of mathematics.
Another "1+ 1" Mathematically, there is also a very famous "(1+ 1)", which is the famous Goldbach conjecture. Although it sounds amazing, its title is not puzzling, as long as you have the math level in the third grade of primary school.
You can understand its meaning. It turns out that this is the18th century. The German mathematician Goldbach accidentally discovered that every even number not less than 6 is the sum of two prime numbers. Such as 3+3 = 6;
1 1+ 13=24。 He tried to prove his discovery, but failed many times.
1742, Goldbach had to turn to Euler, the most authoritative Swiss mathematician in the world at that time, and put forward his own guess. Euler quickly wrote back that this conjecture must be established, but he could not prove it. Someone will explain it one by one right away.
Even numbers greater than 6 have been checked until it reaches 330000000. The results show that Goldbach's conjecture is correct, but it can't be proved. So every even number not less than 6 is the sum of two prime numbers [(1+ 1)].
Conjecture, known as Goldbach conjecture, has become an elusive "pearl" in the crown of mathematics.
In the 1920s of 19, Norwegian mathematician Brown proved that every even number greater than 6 can be decomposed into a product of no more than 9 prime numbers and another product of no more than 9 prime numbers, which is called "(9
+9)"。 Since then, mathematicians all over the world have adopted screening method to study Goldbach conjecture.
At the end of 1956, Chen Jingrun, who had written more than 40 papers, was transferred to the Academy of Sciences and began to concentrate on the study of number theory under the guidance of Professor Hua. 1966 In May, he rose to the sky of mathematics like a bright star and announced that he had proved it.
Clear (1+2). 1973, the simplified proof of (1+2) was published, and his paper caused a sensation in mathematics. "(1+2)" means that even numbers can be expressed as the product of a prime number and no more than two prime numbers.
"Sum" is internationally recognized as "Chen Jingrun Theorem".
Chen Jingrun (1933.5~ 1996.3) is a modern mathematician in China. 1933 was born in Fuzhou, Fujian on May 22nd. 1953 graduated from the Mathematics Department of Xiamen University. Because he changed a result of the Tali issue.
Jin was highly valued by China and was transferred to the Institute of Mathematics of China Academy of Sciences. He was first an intern researcher and assistant researcher, and then he was promoted to a researcher by leaps and bounds, and was elected as a member of the Department of Mathematical Physics of China Academy of Sciences.
1in late March, 1996, Chen Jingrun collapsed just a stone's throw from the glorious peak of Goldbach's conjecture, leaving endless regrets for the world.