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Why Einstein Will Never Be Wrong
- pmiller2 13y agoOne of my professors in grad school was an editor of a monthly publication dedicated to publishing undergrad-level math-related stuff. He has a really amusing drawer full of "proofs" of Fermat's last theorem, the Goldbach conjecture, and the parallel postulate.
- dded 13y agoIn HS geometry, our teacher started showing us basic constructions with compass and ruler: bisecting a line segment, drawing a line perpendicular to another line, and bisecting an angle. Then, at the end of class, he mentioned that no one had ever succeeded in figuring out a method to trisect angles. He did not mention that it had been proven that you couldn't (in the general case). I spent the entire evening trying to trisect the angle.
- pavel_lishin 13y agoIt seems like a useful way to spend an evening for someone learning geometry.
- chinpokomon 13y agoI think it was explained that way to me too. I also spent a lot of time trying different ways. In hind sight, that was probably one of the best ways I could have been taught. I was challenged to try and do something that others had not.
- nmc 13y agoWhen Paul Wolfskehl offered a prize of 100k German marks for Fermat's "last theorem", the University of Göttingen had to print generic rejection forms saying: "Thank you for submitting a proof of Fermat's theorem. Your first mistake is on page __ line __."