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I 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
by mlthoughts2018 7y ago
I 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.