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 Forum index » Diversions » Perplex City Puzzle Cards » PXC: Silver Puzzle Cards
[Puzzle] Silver #238 Riemann
Moderators: AnthraX101, bagsbee, BrianEnigma, cassandra, Giskard, lhall, Mikeyj, myf, poozle, RobMagus, xnbomb
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groovygirl20
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Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Posts: 100
Location: Lincolnshire! ENGLAND!! WOO!!

 		well i'm sorry but that does sound out of order! I read most of the pages on there and there was none of that information on it and if people want the information and they can't be bothered to go through 40 pages of it they look at the last few don't they?

sheesh its just a game
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 4:01 pm
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NirdGerl
Kilroy

Joined: 06 May 2006
Posts: 2

 		Whose proved Riemann?
Okay, maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree entirely here but I had to pipe up.

Perplex city is an alternate reality game, and they say they'll accept the name of someone who has proved the Riemann Hypothesis.

Well no one in 'our world' has solved it, but I can think of one fictional proof just off the top of my head.

I tried to solve with "Gunter Janek" and "Dr Gunter Janek" and "Setec Astronomy" but so far it's looking like the Mind candy people aren't fans of the movie Sneakers.

However there must be some famous work of fiction out there involving the consequences of the Riemann proof?

Perhaps it's one of those which is needed?

Just a thought.

-Stace

PostPosted: Sat May 06, 2006 10:26 pm
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Hunting4Treasure
Unfettered


Joined: 06 Aug 2005
Posts: 385
Location: Tampa Bay Area, FL USA

 		For the record, 'John Forbes Nash' can be added to the *incorrect* list. Confused
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PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 2:42 am
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fuse
Greenhorn

Joined: 16 Apr 2006
Posts: 3

 		Idea
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
http://dioxyn.net/stuff/riemann.jpg

Cool

PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 7:04 am
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BluesScale
Boot

Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 14

 		And it contains Ethanol... so has a proof

I wasn't successful in trying this as the answer though.

Blues

PostPosted: Sun May 07, 2006 10:39 am
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Sirichj
Guest


 		A suggestion??
This is my first post so please be kind.

I have spent most of the last 3 hours reading through this and a couple of things stick out in my mind, the word PROOF keeps appearing, and a reply someone had to their email about the card saying something about their answer was not right 'or the spirit in which it was written' or something like that.

Proof and spirit, to me, indicate something about liquids, proof can also be related to printing, I just wonder if perhaps the answer is something as simple as ink or pencil etc. whatever Riemann wrote his hypothesis WITH ??

I may be way off as I haven't had much luck with some of the other cards but as Perplex city said everything you needed was on the card (written in ink) and their email mention spirit (liquid) maybe it was a clue. Just a suggestion !

PostPosted: Mon May 08, 2006 5:15 pm
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locqust
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Joined: 14 Oct 2005
Posts: 545
Location: Gloucestershire UK

 		Right this is gonna be hard to explain without giving away the answer to another card but here it goes...Actually Ill spoilerise it! Very Happy

Spoiler (Rollover to View):
The card dissolution mentions Riemann, this is to do with the way the answer works, so if your interested go look it up Very Happy Anyway I know that other PXC cards have mentioned notable people from our past a few times, ie Wittenstien, so this could just be another one of those times. However I draw your attention to what Garnet says about the answer being of interest to us..perhaps a clue to help with Riemann? Maybe the code or even what the code gives us that linked to the info with Riemann...


I'm going to stop before I confuse the issue too much but food for thought and, yes, I know that MC and Perplexcity said we need to solve the theorem but this isnt the only one he came up with...
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PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2006 7:59 am
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cthrag yaska
Boot


Joined: 28 Nov 2005
Posts: 26
Location: Bolton, UK

 		Nothing new to add, just a rambling view on why we should probably take MC's "prove Riemann" responses at face value.

As it has been a few months since I last followed this thread on Riemann, and in deference to normal practice, I've just spent the evening reading through all 117 printed pages of messages (luckily, I can print 2-up, double-sided, so that's only just over 25 pages). I hereby chip in with my thoughts:

By a strange coincidence, my last contribution has just been cited: Sirichj HERE is talking about my post HERE at the start of December. I personally don't think their use of spirit means anything; although I didn't use the phrase itself, it's a very natural response to my question. For the record, my entire email was:
Quote:
I appreciate that you cannot give out answers, but given the problem of getting wording "spot-on" in some cases, could you at least give me an indication of whether I should pursue my thoughts for this card?

Card #238 "Riemann"

Attempt 1: I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which, however, the margin is not large enough to contain.

Attempt 2: I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which, however, the edit box is not large enough to contain.

The idea, as I'm sure you'll realise, is to allude to Fermat's famous marginal note in his translation of a copy of "Arithmetica" by Diophantus that sparked of the whole "Fermat's Last Theorem" saga.

Should I pursue trying to pin down the wording (maybe trying to find the original Latin version?) or think of something completely different?

Thanks for any nudges you can provide.

Although in my original message I was confident that they couldn't expect us to solve the Riemann Hypothesis (far less type it in the edit box), having read all this thread, I can now believe that that is what they want. Some reasons:

The card must be solvable!
As others have pointed out/accepted (e.g. Juxta HERE and HERE, Fuseunderground HERE, donstobbart HERE, Juxta HERE and Guin HERE), albeit sometimes grudgingly, it's quite possible for the card's solution to be open-ended. Leaving aside the (hopefully very small chance) that the Riemann Hypothesis is one of the victims of Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, the card IS solvable: we simply(!) have to prove the hypothesis true (as most mathematicians expect) or find a counterexample. Except it's a lot easier than that, since MC will also accept a reference to an "acceptable" proof (or, presumably, disproof). At present, the most promising candidate author of such a proof is Louis De Branges de Bourcia, but one of us _might_ beat him to it (of course, Louis may be one of us...)

The only real difference between this and, say, Shuffled or 13th Labour, is that MC don't know what the answer is at the moment. However, just because nobody today knows what the answer will be, doesn't mean that the card cannot be solved; only that it cannot be solved YET.

Is it fair that Mind Candy don't know the answer yet?
Debatable. Part of me, the slightly anal "must get all the points" part, feels somewhat disappointed that there exists a card that cannot be solved today.

However, the same is true for 13th Labour. From what I understand (and I've not fully caught up that thread yet), apart from donating some CPU time, _I_ effectively have absolutely no hope of solving that card, and to all intents and purposes, it is (currently) as insolvable as this one. In both cases, I basically have to wait for someone else to solve it first (be it a lucky CPU-contributor or Louis).

From the various references, it seems that at the time the puzzles were being set, De Branges had at least an outside chance of proving the hypothesis. Or, perhaps more importantly, if (as would seem from the starburst on the card), MC will accept Clay Math's acceptance of a proof, and they [Clay] (if Fuseunderground is correct) accept "not disproven inside two years", then there's a reasonable chance that a definitive answer would become available within the time-frame of the PXC game.

Are MC guilty of not carrying out "due diligence"
As Guin HERE says, it could be construed as "cheeky" that MC are not verifying every candidate solution to check that it isn't a valid proof (or reference to one).

However, the presence of the $1m Clay Math Prize, not to mention the notoriety of the problem, means that as soon as anyone (be it De Branges or someone else) succeeds in forming a peer-acceptable proof (or finds a counterexample), the whole world will know about it, and MC will be able to update their "solutions database" with acceptable URLs or similar references to the proof (I don't see the proof ever fitting, although it's possible that a counterexample, if there was one, could fit).

So: yes, it's probably a _little_ cheeky of them not to say "you're solution is pending verification", but not unreasonable. Let's face it, if one of us DID discover a "truly marvellous proof", I for one know which of Mind Candy or Clay Math I'd approach first. 60 points may be 60 points, but $1m is $1m! As hexDa3m0n says HERE, almost as soon as an answer is known, MC will know it.

And in one sense they're correct: a "proof" needs to be a "peer-verified" proof; and MC alone could not assume the authority to check a random proof. As soon as a peer-reviewed proof IS available, MC will know about it (as will the rest of the world and the best-seller lists).

Could this STILL be a red-herring?
Although Jakeo HERE points out several spelling mistakes in the first message that really makes explicit the need to solve Riemann's Hypothesis (assuming these aren't transcription errors by donstobbart), Guin's reply from them HERE only has one that I can see (the first "Hypothoesis"). Despite the long-running "correct the errors on the card" thread, I suspect these are just genuine typos of someone at MC typing too quickly. (My first reply from MC [to a query about a completely different card] also had a "typed in a hurry" typo in it).

I've never seen or heard anything in these fora to suggest that any reply from Mind Candy contains misinformation. It most often might be no information ("no comment"), or it might limited information (a subtle hint), but to have several replies all lying about what is needed doesn't seem to be their style.

Do the Perplexians know the proof?
Unlike dcc HERE (and probably others), I don't think the replies imply that the Perplexians know. It stresses that no one on Earth knows, but leaves entirely open the question of whether anybody else (off Earth) knows. I personally don't think they will know, since it would strain the in-game/out-of-game boundary too much: if someone in-game knows a proof to the satisfaction of the puzzle scribes, then that proof could be passed in-game to Earth, where -- by definition -- it would be sufficient to satisfy the out-of-game Clay Institute.

What next?
I'm with hexDa3m0n in the above link: ignore this card for the moment. Even if you don't like the idea, accept for the time being that a card might be unsolvable at the moment. Check in on the 8th June to see if Clay have accepted De Branges proof, otherwise hold your horses until he develops his other paper(s). Keep a little sceptical corner of your mind open to the (I think remote) possibility that MC are misdirecting us with their responses.

PostPosted: Tue May 16, 2006 7:32 am
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kontan
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Joined: 11 May 2006
Posts: 6

 		Counter to previous post
I must say that I dissagree with cthrag yaska in the previous post. The problem I have is the answer box itself. Let's not forget that most of the information about the ramifications of the Riemann Hypothesis is that it is true, but it could equally be realistic that it is not. The answer box, as well as the emails from Mind Candy, states "Show your proof". My problem with this is what if the hypothesis shows to not be true. The answer box asks us to show our proof of the Riemann hypothesis, but nowhere does it state "or show your proof against it."

Also stated is one can enter someone who has shown a proof, but does not say anything about someone finding proof that the hypothesis is not true. And let's not forget that if the hypothesis is not true, there would be much less reason to show a proof of this. Mathemiticians would agree that someone coming up with a proof that 1 does not equal 2 is not really a great mathematical problem. If someone found a non trivial zero of the Zeta function that did not fall on the 1/2 line, I don't think the mathematical community would necessarily be clamoring for a proof that the hypothesis is not true. The digit alone would prove that it is not true. Therefore, answering this card would be impossible, unless of course you just put in the digit. Is this a proof? I don't think so.

PostPosted: Fri May 26, 2006 1:19 am
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dps05
Boot


Joined: 25 Jan 2006
Posts: 47
Location: Aberystwyth
kontan wrote:
...The answer box, as well as the emails from Mind Candy, states "Show your proof". My problem with this is what if the hypothesis shows to not be true. The answer box asks us to show our proof of the Riemann hypothesis, but nowhere does it state "or show your proof against it."

In my experience 'proof' is a pretty generic term and can be taken as proving something or disproving it.
kontan wrote:
...If someone found a non trivial zero of the Zeta function that did not fall on the 1/2 line, I don't think the mathematical community would necessarily be clamoring for a proof that the hypothesis is not true. The digit alone would prove that it is not true. Therefore, answering this card would be impossible, unless of course you just put in the digit. Is this a proof? I don't think so.

Putting the non-trivial zero into the equation/hypothesis would constitute 'proof by counter-example' and is a completely valid method of proving (or disproving) something. Most hypotheses require rigorous and generalised proof to show they are valid - whereas a single counter-example is enough to blow them out of the water. Which is where our problem with Riemann lies - no-one has been able to find the non-trivial zero to disprove the hypothesis - and no proof has been rigorous yet.

Hope that makes some sense!

EDIT (reply to kontan's post below): A counter-example would would be proof of the statement "the Riemann hypothesis is false". And as I am learning in ARGs hair-splitting seems essential Smile
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PostPosted: Fri May 26, 2006 10:10 am
Last edited by dps05 on Sun May 28, 2006 9:47 am; edited 1 time in total
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kontan
Greenhorn

Joined: 11 May 2006
Posts: 6
Quote:
Putting the non-trivial zero into the equation/hypothesis would constitute 'proof by counter-example' and is a completely valid method of proving (or disproving) something.


Dps05 - I beg to differ. A proof is showing facts that back up a cerain formula is true, not false. Wikipedia defines a "Mathematical proof" as:

"In mathematics, a proof is a demonstration that, assuming certain axioms, some statement is necessarily true."

and the dictionary defines proof as "The evidence or argument that compels the mind to accept an assertion as true."

If the Riemann hypothesis was not true, there would be nothing you could put into the box "show your proof" that would prove this hypothesis to be true. I know I may be splitting hairs here, but considering I am about to shoot myself in the head over this card, I am holding on to anything I can find for dear life.

PostPosted: Sat May 27, 2006 10:33 pm
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Grizy
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Joined: 19 Nov 2005
Posts: 89
Location: Preston, UK

 		Kontan,

Don't dispair.
If this cards really getting you down
Spoiler (Rollover to View):
www.samaritans.org.uk

These guys can help

PostPosted: Sun May 28, 2006 1:13 pm
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BBuck
Decorated

Joined: 13 Dec 2005
Posts: 184

 		Good news, bad news.

Inspired by the response MC gave to an e-mail on Shuffled, I sent the following yesterday:

Quote:
Dear Mind Candy,

the debate on Unfiction continues over the solvability of #238 Riemann. As you did with a response to an enquirer about #243 Shuffled, can you confirm whether there is an answer in the database for #238 Riemann?

This would help a lot of people sleep easier.

Cheers


MC came back quickly this morning:

Quote:
Hello,

The only valid answers for Riemann are:

a) A proof or disproof of the Riemann hypothesis as validated by the Clay
Mathematics Institute

b) A reference to a successful proof or disproof of the Riemann hypothesis as validated by the Clay Mathematics Institute. (for instance, were you yourself to submit a successful proof to the CMI, we would permit "BBuck" as an answer.)

That's it!

We hope this answers the question for everyone, for all time, and forever
more... Surprised)

Best regards,
Perplex City Customer Services


I think it is case closed (for the time being).

PostPosted: Tue May 30, 2006 10:36 am
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fretty
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Joined: 19 Nov 2004
Posts: 281
Location: South Yorkshire, England

 		Wouldn't it just be good if someone could get the CMI to allow a fake proof so that the card could be solved.

PostPosted: Tue May 30, 2006 1:44 pm
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xemnas
Guest
fretty wrote:
Wouldn't it just be good if someone could get the CMI to allow a fake proof so that the card could be solved.



LOL!!! Only we wish, if CMI actually agreed to it, then wouldn't real mathmaticians go crazy over the incorrect solve? This has major importance in so many things for Internet security and firewalls ect. If it was solved I'd say we have a couple of years, maybe when Season 3 comes out! LOL!

PostPosted: Sun Jun 04, 2006 11:41 am
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