4 ms·

Any mathematicians here wish to take a look at the paper, and comment on the likelihood the proof is solid?

_delirium 15y ago
Fwiw, the author of the paper did his PhD work with Collatz himself, though that was over 40 years ago (http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=27958 http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=27958). Not conclusive, but makes me inclined to consider it a serious effort. Not qualified to judge beyond that, though.
- dmarquis 15y ago
  I wouldn't take that as changing the odds of correctness. Collatz stated the conjecture but made no progress towards a solution.
bitdiddle 15y ago
I will look at it this weekend. If true, the productivity of math departments everywhere will go up. I know so many that banged their heads on this one for a while. I once wasted an entire week playing with this on the Symbolics. It's horribly addicting because of it's simplicity.
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  How do you measure the productivity of a math department?
  - dreamux 15y ago
    One; minus the time spent either dividing even numbers by two or multiplying odd numbers by three and adding one, over the total time working.
  - Groxx 15y ago
    The same way you measure productivity of a programmer. LoP (Lines of Proof) per day.
deleted 15y ago
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thebooktocome 15y ago
I'm not really a mathematician yet, but I skimmed the paper and the approach seemed reasonable when taken at face value. Then again, I said the same thing when Penny Smith published her paper on NSE.
bitdiddle 15y ago
I can't say, I looked at this briefly and was hoping for an elementary proof. This paper casts the problem in terms of linear operators over holomorphic function spaces and assumes a number of prior results in that area, and it's been far too long since I read complex analysis. In some sense it's a little unsatisfying that a simple proof has not been found, but this is what makes math so addicting I suppose.

Fwiw, the author of the paper did his PhD work with Collatz himself, though that was over 40 years ago (http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=27958 http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=27958). Not conclusive, but makes me inclined to consider it a serious effort. Not qualified to judge beyond that, though.

dmarquis 15y ago
I wouldn't take that as changing the odds of correctness. Collatz stated the conjecture but made no progress towards a solution.

bitdiddle 15y ago

I will look at it this weekend. If true, the productivity of math departments everywhere will go up. I know so many that banged their heads on this one for a while. I once wasted an entire week playing with this on the Symbolics. It's horribly addicting because of it's simplicity.

pavel_lishin 15y ago
How do you measure the productivity of a math department?
- dreamux 15y ago
  One; minus the time spent either dividing even numbers by two or multiplying odd numbers by three and adding one, over the total time working.
- Groxx 15y ago
  The same way you measure productivity of a programmer. LoP (Lines of Proof) per day.

deleted 15y ago

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thebooktocome 15y ago

I'm not really a mathematician yet, but I skimmed the paper and the approach seemed reasonable when taken at face value. Then again, I said the same thing when Penny Smith published her paper on NSE.

bitdiddle 15y ago

I can't say, I looked at this briefly and was hoping for an elementary proof. This paper casts the problem in terms of linear operators over holomorphic function spaces and assumes a number of prior results in that area, and it's been far too long since I read complex analysis. In some sense it's a little unsatisfying that a simple proof has not been found, but this is what makes math so addicting I suppose.