World's Hardest Math Problem: 1

[sully800]

Yes, it works hundreds of different ways. No, it has not been proven as fact. It's the Pythagorean Theorem. In other words, not proven. It will never be proven as fact, as there are infinite possibilities. So that is a reason why it cannot be proven.

LOL

theorem != theory

Theorems are proven. Conjectures are not.

[Aimless]

Yes, it works hundreds of different ways. No, it has not been proven as fact. It's the Pythagorean Theorem. In other words, not proven. It will never be proven as fact, as there are infinite possibilities. So that is a reason why it cannot be proven.

A statement which could only have been made by someone who has not studied math.

As for the "infinite possibilities," I suggest you look up the principle of mathematical induction sometime. That is just one of the many ways in which "infinite possibilities" are proven all the time.

[pancakemix]

Yes, it works hundreds of different ways. No, it has not been proven as fact. It's the Pythagorean Theorem. In other words, not proven. It will never be proven as fact, as there are infinite possibilities. So that is a reason why it cannot be proven.

A statement which could only have been made by someone who has not studied math.

As for the "infinite possibilities," I suggest you look up the principle of mathematical induction sometime. That is just one of the many ways in which "infinite possibilities" are proven all the time.

I'm in 9th grade.

[Aimless]

Yes, it works hundreds of different ways. No, it has not been proven as fact. It's the Pythagorean Theorem. In other words, not proven. It will never be proven as fact, as there are infinite possibilities. So that is a reason why it cannot be proven.

A statement which could only have been made by someone who has not studied math.

As for the "infinite possibilities," I suggest you look up the principle of mathematical induction sometime. That is just one of the many ways in which "infinite possibilities" are proven all the time.

I'm in 9th grade.

Well, then, don't believe everything you hear in the popular media about what constitutes theories or whether or not things can be proven. Most of the great misconceptions about math and science regard what exactly the terms "proof" and "theory" mean in any given branch, and misapplication of those terms.

Each branch of science has its own "burden of acceptance" (I'd call it burden of proof, but that's using the word proof in too many places here).

For instance, in math, something is accepted as true only if it follows tautologically from a set of given axioms. We call these somethings "theorems" (or, sometimes, lemmas and corollaries and other various and sundry terms); from a math standpoint theorems are tautological statements (that is, they are unquestionably true).

Working down the progression, physics has a slightly lower burden of acceptance. In physics, "theory" is a word that gets bandied about rather broadly, but in general it means "a statement which makes testable predictions about the way the universe works, and whose predictions have been shown to be correct by repeated experimentation." Thus, in physics, anything which survives long enough to be given the name "theory" is generally true; occasionally new theories will come out that overturn old ones, but even then it is often a case that the old ones are still a good approximation to the way in which the universe works, and the new theory simply extends what we know into the regions in which the old theory broke down.

Chemistry and biology have slightly lower burdens of acceptance, but the burdens are still sufficiently strong that anything which is given the name theory (and especially anything theory which survives for a substantial length of time) can be taken to be true. A famous example of this is evolution - despite the term "theory," there is no serious debate among practicing biologists regarding the truth of the theory; and current debate is solely over the mechanisms by which it occurs.

Then, you get into sciences such as geology, meteorology, etc., which due to the quality of data and the complexity of the systems involved have a hard time establishing empirical truth. Worse yet are the social sciences, in which virtually no empirical truth exists.

At any rate, the point of this long-winded rambling is that if you are going to get into a discussion regarding the "provability" of some statement, you should keep in mind the context behind the statement and what the accepted burden of proof in that context actually is.

[Utafar]

Just bringing this to your attention. Anyone trying to solve that problem for premium membership is wasting there time, cause he said Mebership not Membership.

[Jehan]

they'd probably be wasting their time anyway dude. whether its for a mebership or a membership.
Unless their willing to devote their entire life to the possibility of finding the answer.

[Guilty_Biscuit]

they'd probably be wasting their time anyway dude. whether its for a mebership or a membership.
Unless their willing to devote their entire life to the possibility of finding the answer.

And it would be well worth devoting your life to that possibility. I think there is a $1 million prize on offer for the proof along with a small fortune to be made in book sales.

[Telvannia]

off topic from this problem but another mathematical one.
It is the one where the chinese person asked for one grain of rice on the first square of a chess board, then 2 on the seconds, the 4 or the third, and so one, how many grains of rice did he have in total?
In one of my tech lessons i worked it out to be somewhere in region of 9x10^18 on the last square.
can anyone tell me how many in total though? (no prizes, and no copying of the internet)

[Syzygy]

off topic from this problem but another mathematical one.
It is the one where the chinese person asked for one grain of rice on the first square of a chess board, then 2 on the seconds, the 4 or the third, and so one, how many grains of rice did he have in total?
In one of my tech lessons i worked it out to be somewhere in region of 9x10^18 on the last square.
can anyone tell me how many in total though? (no prizes, and no copying of the internet)

It's a geometric series.

Where S64 = [1*((2^64)-1)]/[2-1]

It's works out to be 1844674407370960000.00