Maths holy grail could bring disaster for internet

[Jacobin]

I look forward to Pretzledent Bush's weighty pronouncements on this breakthrough!

Two of the seven million dollar challenges that have baffled for more than a century may be close to being solved

Tim Radford, science editor
Tuesday September 7, 2004
The Guardian

Mathematicians could be on the verge of solving two separate million dollar problems. If they are right - still a big if - and somebody really has cracked the so-called Riemann hypothesis, financial disaster might follow. Suddenly all cryptic codes could be breakable. No internet transaction would be safe.
On the other hand, if somebody has already sorted out the so-called Poincaré conjecture, then scientists will understand something profound about the nature of spacetime, experts told the British Association science festival in Exeter yesterday.

Both problems have stood for a century or more. Each is almost dizzyingly arcane: the problems themselves are beyond simple explanation, and the candidate answers published on the internet are so intractable that they could baffle the biggest brains in the business for many months.

They are two of the seven "millennium problems" and four years ago the Clay Mathematics Institute in the US offered $1m (£563,000) to anyone who could solve even one of these seven. The hypothesis formulated by Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann in 1859, according to Marcus du Sautoy of Oxford University, is the holy grail of mathematics. "Most mathematicians would trade their soul with Mephistopheles for a proof," he said.

The Riemann hypothesis would explain the apparently random pattern of prime numbers - numbers such as 3, 17 and 31, for instance, are all prime numbers: they are divisible only by themselves and one. Prime numbers are the atoms of arithmetic. They are also the key to internet cryptography: in effect they keep banks safe and credit cards secure.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1298728,00.html

On edit, link

[Moderator]

1. Please post link

[Jacobin]

9. oops. sorry, done

:-)

[lazarus]

2. link?

fascinating story, but we need a link.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. Could you post one of these so

perhaps one of us could solve it... or at least get kinda close....

[mhr]

4. Just What We Don't Need - Republicans With The Ability To Steal Us

Blind.

I'd wager bottom dollar, the BFEE is behind this!

sarcasm off/

[Junkdrawer]

5. Link

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1298812,00.html

[coyote]

6. Here´s the link

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1298728,00.html

[lil-petunia]

7. a huge story, much larger than you can imagine.

If true, if this math whiz figured it out, then all security on the net is gone. All of it.
We will need a whole new method of secured transactions. Even more importantly, Codebreaking for nations will be simply getting the right program on a fast enough lap top. Time to dig up a dying language and use them injuns as translators again.

This is huge. A major breakthrough in math.

I can imagine that the NSA's first response would be to put a kabash on it, but once people know that it was done and that it can be done, it is no harder than the theoretical issues of an A-bomb.

The first one cost billions, because no one knew the math or the science. The second was much cheaper, because they knew that it could be done. Today's basic a-bomb construction is child's play.
it's the materials that are harder to come by.

[Junkdrawer]

8. BTW: So much for that silly VoteHere BBV solution...

Paper, pens, and scrutinizers.. Precincts in Canada are hand counted, usually in under an hour.

[Junkdrawer]

20. .

[Kellanved]

10. actually this is not quite as dramatic

While many crypto algorithms are based on the theory that there is no algorithm in P to factorize numbers, not all are.

Nor does the proposed proof to Riemann constitute an immediate solution to the prime number factorization problem. In fact many respected mathematicians consider the "proof" faulty.

[hyphenate]

11. Regardless of its impact on e-commerce

Just the thought that our technology and science might have mastered one of the biggest mysteries of the past century is simply phenomenal. It means that the overall base of knowledge is growing at a rate that will help take a lot of old puzzles and make them understandable to more people.

Look at it this way: in the 50s, the computers of the day were housed in superhuge rooms, filled with magnetic tape, with very cold conditions. The thought then that a computer would ever be utilized on any other level was basic science fiction.

The 60s and 70s helped to bring the size of the computers down to more manageable units, though the thought of individual ownership was still scoffed at.

By the 80s, it was happening. By the 90s, the cost was no longer prohibitive, and most families were learning to be comfortable in the digital age.

It's the same with these mathematical puzzles. Once the realm of super stuffy genius science nerds, the puzzles which were once baffling to even these folks are now being explored in ways where they are becoming understandable to more people. Once these are licked, there will be newer challenges--it won't stop, but the resultant knowledge and resultant understanding of the concepts will help in ways we can't even imagine to further science in other areas. Perhaps one of these theories will result in the "star Trek" concept of matter transportation. Perhaps a true warp-drive. Perhaps a method of communication across the galaxy. Perhaps a way to solve the environmental issues. Even perhaps a method of alternate fuel. The big one, of course, will be to find a truly workable method of cold fusion. This is exciting in ways that many will never comprehend, because they don't allow themselves to think outside the box!

[bmbmd]

12. The answer to the Riemann hypothesis is, of course,

forty-two.

[Hobo]

13. No you are wrong It's...

Fourty three!

Hobo

[alarcojon]

17. Actually, it's a "yes" or "no" question

and the answer is "yes."

Do all zeroes of the Riemann zeta function have real part 1/2?

[Monte Carlo]

14. The No. 1 employer of mathematicians is the _NSA_.

They are so large that they have their own academic world and their own top-secret mathematical research for codebreaking and such, and you can bet that the Riemann hypothesis would be at or near the top of their priority list.

If they did manage to prove the hypothesis and then be able to break all encryption based upon prime numbers, they wouldn't say a goddamned word. They'd be quietly putting all the information they could get their hands on into their own computers.

The advent of quantum computing and encryption might keep this 'disaster' from happening.

[donsu]

15. already discovered is that Random and Chaos do have patterns

which is quite interesting in itself


"It must be reassuring to look at the universe from the perspective of quantum mechanics, to know tht even apparent unpredictability and randomness are subject to certain laws and eventually form a pattern."
Trouble in Transylvania by Barbara Wilson

"Patterns compel, structures compel."
Rats and Gargoyles by Mary Gentle

[loudsue]

16. If only people were smart enough to figure how to live in PEACE!!!

:bounce::loveya: O8) Now THAT would be a breakthrough!!! O8) :loveya::bounce:


:kick::kick::kick::kick:

[Zorra]

18. Indeed. Great post, loudsue.

[AngryAmish]

19. Folks you need to listen to a real mathematician -

Unfortunately I am not one. This is really cool, tho.