Two years ago, in March, Faber Publishing House in Britain and Bloomsbury Publishing House in the United States announced a message: whoever can solve the ancient mathematical mystery of Goldbach's conjecture within two years will get a prize of $6.5438+0 million. In fact, the two publishing houses made this decision to promote the novel Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture by the Greek writer Apostolos Docia Dis. I don't know how this book has sold in the past two years, but this news really messed up the "folk mathematicians" in China. It is understood that in the past two years, the Institute of Mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has been receiving letters and visits from "folk mathematicians" who claim to have solved difficult problems, including many farmers, middle school teachers and senior workers in enterprises. After being shut out, some "folk mathematicians" claimed to send their achievements directly to famous foreign scientific journals for publication, but there was no more. So far, I haven't heard any professional mathematician claim to have successfully solved this problem.
There are many scientific problems that cannot be solved, but why are so many non-professionals so interested in Goldbach's conjecture? Professionals in the Institute of Mathematics and Systems of the Chinese Academy of Sciences believe that the expression of Goldbach's conjecture is too simple and popular, and people who know the mathematical knowledge such as "prime numbers" can understand it, while scientific problems in other fields need not be understood, even those technical terms will make most people confused. Coupled with the award of $6.5438+0 million, it will naturally arouse the courage of "folk mathematicians". But to solve Goldbach's conjecture, only basic mathematical knowledge is far from enough. The Institute of Mathematics of China Academy of Sciences has no plans to solve this ancient problem at present. He reminded math lovers not to overestimate their ability, underestimate the difficulty of the problem and solve it rashly. Goldbach conjecture is a difficult number theory problem, which proves that it not only needs a solid mathematical foundation and extraordinary thinking ability, but also needs a systematic understanding of the attempts made by previous mathematicians, which is difficult for ordinary mathematics lovers to do. Otherwise, you can only waste time and energy.
Many people think that this is purely the hype of these two publishing houses. Shortly after this incident, the American Corey Mathematical Foundation also offered a million dollars to solve seven mathematical problems, but the deadline was 100. Another condition is that the relevant papers must be published in global professional magazines, and the bonus will be paid without objection within two years. Straat, president of the German Mathematicians' Federation, thinks that even a reward of $654.38+0 billion, not to mention $654.38+0 billion, may not speed up the solution of the problem.
Goldbach's Conjecture
1742, the German mathematician Goldbach put forward in a letter to his colleague Euler that every even number not less than 6 is the sum of two prime numbers (referred to as "1+ 1"), which was later called "Goldbach conjecture". 1924 German mathematician Rad mahar proved (7+7); 1932 german mathematician Ais thaelmann proved (6+6); 1938 proof by former Soviet mathematician Buchstaber (5+5); At 1940, he proved (4+4); 1956 The former Soviet mathematician Vinograv proved (3+3); 1958 China mathematician Wang Yuan proved (2+3); 1962 China mathematician pan chengdong proved (l+5); In the same year, Pan Chengdong proved (L+4); 1965, Buchstaber, Vinograff and Italian mathematician Pompierelli all proved (L+2).