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For what it's worth, most mathematicians find the Riemann hypothesis frightening as well. There are much lower level aspects of math to be explored without clim
by v64 7y ago
For what it's worth, most mathematicians find the Riemann hypothesis frightening as well. There are much lower level aspects of math to be explored without climbing the proverbial Mt. Everest of math problems.
- mlthoughts2018 7y agoI disagree with this. I don’t think the Riemann Hypothesis is “harder” than various other unsolved problems like Yang-Mills or Navier-Stokes. Most professional mathematicians would succeed just as much or as little as the particular subset who actively work on the Riemann Hypothesis, if they chose to study it. I think it’s more that in terms of instrumental rationality / goal achievement, working on the Riemann Hypothesis doesn’t suit very many people. There are other trade-offs with funding, applications, lifestyle goals, etc., so it’s just not for everyone. But there’s no way at all that “most mathematicians find the Riemann Hypothesis frightening” as you suggest.
- lonelappde 7y agoThe other unsolved problems at frightening as well, insofar as such an informal emotional word has any consensus meaning, perhaps "if I had funding to spend my whole life on this problem, there's a god chance I'd make very little progress."
- v64 7y agoAgreed, I think frightening carried a connotation that I didn't intend. My intention was to state that problems like the Riemann hypothesis are of a level of difficulty such that mathematicians believe these problems cannot be solved without a major fundamental leap forward in our understanding. Erdos expressed a similar frustration toward the Collatz conjecture when he stated "Mathematics may not be ready for such problems". So with respect to the original comment I was replying to, there are other areas of mathematics that one can study that are well understood and not so opaque as the Riemann hypothesis.