Recently, a well-known mathematician Sir Michael Atiyah, claims to have solved a 159-year-old mathematics problem. Atiyah, is an 89-year-old mathematician, who won the Fields Medal in 1966, and the Abel Prize in 2004. Both awards are the top mathematics accolades one can receive. As for the mathematics problem itself, the Riemann Hypothesis is the current most famous unsolved problem in mathematics, as well as one of the Clay Mathematics Institute’s seven millennium problems. Each millennium problem has a reward worth one million dollars. So far, only one millennium problem has been solved. (Poincaré Conjecture)
The Riemann Hypothesis was first proposed by Bernhard Riemann in 1859. The problem is related to how prime numbers, such as 3, 5, 7, or 104527, are distributed. The distribution of such prime numbers is said to not follow any regular patterns. Riemann however, stated that the distribution of prime numbers is closely related to the following equation known as the Riemann Zeta Function.
The hypothesis states that, for s, other than the values of -2, -4, and -6… such that all lie on a critical line R[s] = 1/2, where R[s] is the real part of s.
Many famous mathematicians such as the man who knew infinity, Srinivasa Ramanujan, or the beautiful mind mathematician, John Nash Jr. have claimed in the past to have solved the Riemann Hypothesis, but flaws in their proofs say otherwise.
Many mathematicians, and scientists, as well as my self, are skeptical of the proof. Mainly because it is so short. Atiyah claims to have solved it in a simple way. The “proof” is short enough to fit onto 12 pages. Rarely ever does a hypothesis like this one ever fit onto less than a couple hundred papers. For example, the proof of the Ramanujan Conjecture is estimated to be over 2000 pages. Atiyah claims that his proof uses a weakly analytical function known as Todd’s Function and the work of Neuman and Hirzebruch to prove the R.H. by contradiction. Currently, the paper is being peer reviewed to check if the claim is true. Only with time we will know if the Riemann Hypothesis is solved.