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A proof of the Riemann hypothesis
- michael_dorfman 18y agoAnyone know enough math to be able to tell if this is a serious contender?
- te_platt 18y agoI know enough to know the author believes it to be a serious contender. At least it's not some kind of joke.
- cperciva 18y agoThis isn't my area, but I know enough to say that he speaks the right language and builds on existing results in the field. So I'd classify this as a serious contender... in the same sense as other serious contenders have been put forward every 1-2 years for the past 50 years, only to be withdrawn after someone points out mistakes. I'd say that it's almost certain that there are mistakes somewhere in this paper -- the only question is whether they're serious flaws or just minor errors which can be worked around.
- rms 18y agoThe author has this named after him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li%27s_criterion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li%27s_criterion
- antiform 18y agoHe'll have to get in line. [http://secamlocal.ex.ac.uk/people/staff/mrwatkin/zeta/RHproofs.htm http://secamlocal.ex.ac.uk/people/staff/mrwatkin/zeta/RHproo...] If you peruse the Number Theory papers on the arXiv, you'll see that there is a purported proof of the Riemann hypothesis every few weeks. So far, none of them have been vetted by a professional journal. I'd be very surprised (but happy) if this turned out to contain a correct proof. A more interesting question would be "Why is this particular proof by this otherwise unknown author getting so much attention?"
- brent 18y agoAt least two answers to your question: 1) He authored http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li%27s_criterion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li%27s_criterion 2) I believe some theorists have already looked at it and I haven't heard anything negative [disclaimer: I'm far from an expert and wouldn't be able to even agree or disagree with their analyses].
- jlhamilton 18y agoTerence Tao says there is a problem with the proof. http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/structure-and-randomness-in-the-prime-numbers/#comment-30714 http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/structure-and-rando...