Agreed, 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 di

Agreed, 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.