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 ...
13 posts about Srinivasa Ramanujan and no whining about H1Bs...
How is it a "puzzle"? It's a coincidence, or a feature of mathematics but what is so puzzling about it? Tell me why math has this feature, and then you will be on to something. The article alludes to "why" but doesn't spell it out, and I don't think that it is possible to say why prime numbers have this feature, that's just the way it is.
-pong
Interesting, Thanks.
When I first tried to post my message, I got an error message saying FreeRepublic couldn't be reached, so I resent it, and sure enough they both turned up!
Why do the British call it "maths" instead of "math"? What's plural about it? Generally, you're only engaging on one kind of math - algebra, geometry, calculus, trigonometry.
Cool.
I'm puzzled why they don't speak English...
Stop - my head is starting to hurt!
And let us not forget their wonderful cuisine: bangers, spotted dick, and steak and kidney pie.
Now the valley cried with anger; mount your horses, draw your sword,
and they killed the mountain people, so they won their just reward.
Now they stood beside the treasure on the mountain, dark and red,
turned the stone and looked beneath it. "Peace on earth" was all it said.
Well, don't know if I'd go so far as to say I resented it, but I was ticked. :-)
Sad song from the 70s. I remember that one.
bump.
LOL
Chemistry, mechanics, physics, STOCK MARKET... this stuff can go anywhere.
I'm sending this article to SirSuziQ. He's a big math guy!
I resemble that remark.
Very nice. Congratulations to Mahlburg.
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