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Any other big proofs / theorems that came seemingly out of nowhere? Yitang Zhang's bounded prime gaps comes to mind. And of course that physics thing from that
by daxfohl 10y ago
Any other big proofs / theorems that came seemingly out of nowhere? Yitang Zhang's bounded prime gaps comes to mind. And of course that physics thing from that Swiss patent clerk guy, can't remember his name offhand.
- hiddencost 10y agoGrigori Perlman dropped a proof of the Poincaré conjecture with little warning.
- typon 10y agoHottest mixtape of all time
- jseliger 10y agoYes. And Masha Gessen wrote an excellent book called Perfect Rigor about the proof and the man: https://jakeseliger.com/2016/11/29/perfect-rigor-a-genius-and-the-mathematical-breakthrough-of-the-century-masha-gessen https://jakeseliger.com/2016/11/29/perfect-rigor-a-genius-an.... Highly recommended.
- daxfohl 10y agoGranted he was one of the world's best two or three mathematicians at the time.
- willis77 10y ago> that physics thing from that Swiss patent clerk guy I think you're thinking of Carl deGrasse Feynman.
- daxfohl 10y agoSphere packing in dim 8 and 24 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryna_Viazovska https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryna_Viazovska) and the "Set" game limit (https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160531-set-proof-stuns-mathematicians/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160531-set-proof-stuns-math...) are two more recent examples.