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 ...
No one got my 0.007297352568( +/- 24) joke. :-(
Sigh.
Hey, it's the NEW SCIENTIST. You weren't expecting subtlety in reporting, were you? :-)
Didn't? Wow. You're a first to me.
The absolutely abusurd yet relentless logic. It was tangible. I mean, comeon. The Infinite Probability Machine (Heart of Gold)
Best comedic device, ever.
"This is a major step forward," Andrews told New Scientist. "We would not have expected that the crank would have been the right answer to so many of these congruence theorems." But again, it was not clear why prime numbers showed these patterns - until Mahlburg proved the crank can be generalised to all primes. He likens the problem to a gymnasium full of people and a "big, complicated theory" saying there is an even number of people in the gym. Rather than counting every person, Mahlburg uses a "combinatorial" approach showing that the people are dancing in pairs. "Then, it's quite easy to see there's an even number," he says.
Maybe if you threw it a bit closer to the plate?
This is obviously a hoax. Al Gore figured this out on a cocktail napkin years ago.
Google the number. :-)
Not really. I don't understand it very well (this is number theory) myself and I certainly couldn't explain it to FR, unfortunately.
LOL! :-)
I could only do a couple pages a day. Utterly ridiculous stuff. It is refreshing for a paragraph or two, but its like reading crap at DU. Except way more clever.
Excellent point. It raises so many interesting points. Are numbers an invention by man, in which case this is just a strange accident. If not an invention of man, what are they? Did they always exist? How did they come to exist? Are numbers evolving? Do they exist independent of sentient beings? Do numbers prove that God exists? The "why" question then becomes very intersting.
I have to rest now, my head hurts.
I just gave up. Was way too silly for me.
I also don't like Monty Python, The Three Stooges, or most of that type of comedy.
I'm with you on that. I only like the Hitchhiker's Guide because I know the answer is 42--now I don't have to worry about the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. As Forrest Gump said, "its one less thing."
Yeah, and if foots are feet, then boots are beet!
I still like 0.007297352568( +/- 24) better. :-)
bump
The Hitchhiker's books were just cashing in on the success of the radio play. I'm afraid the radio play sounds a bit dated now (I have it on tape) but in 1981, when no one knew where it was going week by week, it was astonishing.
Not a thing!
Cool. I didn't know that. :-)
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