Posted on 03/25/2005 8:50:03 AM PST by bedolido
A number puzzle originating in the work of self-taught maths genius Srinivasa Ramanujan nearly a century ago has been solved. The solution may one day lead to advances in particle physics and computer security.
Karl Mahlburg, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, US, has spent a year putting together the final pieces to the puzzle, which involves understanding patterns of numbers.
"I have filled notebook upon notebook with calculations and equations," says Mahlburg, who has submitted a 10-page paper of his results to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The patterns were first discovered by Ramanujan, who was born in India in 1887 and flunked out of college after just a year because he neglected his studies in subjects outside of mathematics.
But he was so passionate about the subject he wrote to mathematicians in England outlining his theories, and one realised his innate talent. Ramanujan was brought to England in 1914 and worked there until shortly before his untimely death in 1920 following a mystery illness.
Curious patterns Ramanujan noticed that whole numbers can be broken into sums of smaller numbers, called partitions. The number 4, for example, contains five partitions: 4, 3+1, 2+2, 1+1+2, and 1+1+1+1.
He further realised that curious patterns - called congruences - occurred for some numbers in that the number of partitions was divisible by 5, 7, and 11. For example, the number of partitions for any number ending in 4 or 9 is divisible by 5.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
It would seem to me it would be an advance in how to hack into systems.
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Somebody needs to take a grammars class.
To me, the biggest puzzle is why the English say "maths" rather than "math"!
I saw Ken Ono give a talk on this. It's a very interesting result and excellent work, but I don't think worthy of a writeup in this magazine -- and such a bad one at that. They're not really telling what this means in any real sense.
Just two words: "Quantum Cryptography" :-)
See #5 - that's how the English say it.
I didn't know this was such a mystery. They should have asked me -- I worked this out years ago.
BTTT
Ramanujan was truly one of the great talents. It's a pity that he wasn't lucky enough to be born into better circumstances to develop that talent.
Ramanajun (sp?) was freakishly smart. We will be trying to figure out his work and test his theories for many years to come.
Well, everyone knows the English don't know how to speak English. They took a perfectly good language from us and messed it up with all their weird pronunciations and words.
And if they don't like it, well, they can just stuff it in the "boot" of their car!
Well, everyone knows the English don't know how to speak English. They took a perfectly good language from us and messed it up with all their weird pronunciations and words.
And if they don't like it, well, they can just stuff it in the "boot" of their car!
Or maybe it was because he was only one year old?
Or maybe it was because he was only one year old?
Well, at least we can both claim to have "hit the post button" only once.
Why do we say we are using "Mathematics" and not "Mathematic?"
Rank?
Crank?
Sounds like a Ted Nugent lyric.
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