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 ...
Since we happen to use a base 10 system (for no other reason than we learn to count on 10 fingers), do problems like this really matter? Is there an equivalent observation to be had in binary, trinary, or any other base? If not, then why should we care about such silly patterns?
"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."
No such thing as a "coincidence" in math. If one things operates in a given way, all related fields act the same way. It's how our logic grasps it.
Think of pi. Is 3.141592653... in all circles a coincidence? Or does it have implications in how we handle geometry?
Somebody needs to take a grammars class.
You stole my comment. Now I'm stuck with just... read later bump. ;-)
There was an extremely dark movie made a few years ago using this premise called "Pi".
Didn't he cause the breakup of a famous group of mathemeticians back in the 70's?
Pi are round, cornbread are squared...
If you used a base 12 math system, 5 would STILL go in to 10 twice.
The functions of math don't change with your method of keeping track.
I thought about what you said as well.
Okay, I'm going away now. I admit I have nothing substantive to contribute to this thread, being unlearned in any of the various maths.
We dump their tea, they screw with our language!
try it in hexidecimal (base 16). 1 thru 10, plus A thru F.
old mainframe programmer speaks of nightmares from the past.
Still haven't seen it. Want to though.
I read the article but I still don't understand CBS's new show, Numbers.
The question is meaningless if there can be no answer.
1*1=1
3*3=1
5*5=1
7*7=1
Furthermore, if you multiply any two of {1,3,5,7}, you get something in that set. But with this kind of arithmetic, 1 has four square roots.
lol... weren't they called the prime-tles? (sorry)
Which appears to be part of the inspiration for the current TV series "NUMB3RS."
contraction of "mathenatics" - maths.
Yes, for a time they went to India and became followers of the Guru Ramanujan.
Yeah, but we got 'em back. We talked them into playing baseball with a wooden ball and no gloves. MUhahahahaha....
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