unforum

[Arkai]

[uptheblades]

could we get this guy on the case?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5274040.stm?ls

He solves problems and refuses to claim the prizes!
its reckoned that if The Clay Institute offer him the $1million for the complex problem he says he solved in 2002, he'll turn that one down as well..

[hairysocks]

Just a few shots in the dark that all proved to be wrong:

Je pense, donc je suis. (which is the original version of...)
I think, therefore I am.
I think. Therefore I am.

I was going on the idea that were the card's page asks for your proof, I was thinking of a proof of myself.

Of course, according to Decartes line of logic, the only thing that exists is myself, so even this forum and the whole of the Perplex City game are just figments of my own vivid imagination.

[pheebs]

its quite obvious the answer is alcohol. alcohol is the only proof i need, trying to work this card out

ok... so we're no closer to solving this than we were when the card came out?

friday-itis has set in and my brain has gone to mush.

[indigowolf]

Life, the universe and everything?

[Cabbage]

[indigowolf]

more lateral thinking

[brainstorm]

Riemann

[32_footsteps]

A friend of mine is actually a number theorist (a year or two shy of his Ph.D. in the field), so I asked him about this card.

The frightening thing is, he brought up the conjecture that Riemann's Hypothesis might actually be unproveable. Not just that it hasn't been proven, but it might not ever be proven. He also brought up that there are people actively working towards disproving the hypothesis, and that they're just as likely to succeed in their proof.

He doesn't have an opinion one way or another as to whether or not it can actually be proven - but what if that conjecture is right, and Riemann's Hypothesis can't be definitely proven or disproven? For our purposes, what will MC do about the card then?

[x]

They wont do anything. I would almost bet they dont even care what happens with this, as far as completion goes.

Others have mentioned before, that they are tickled pink that there is an "impossible card" ... (or nearly impossible, bah)

Id be happier with a silver card called "Whats in my pocket"
with nothing but a large "?" on the card.

Or better... the silver card "God" with the text, "Prove the existance of god."
On it.

I appreciate the insane math puzzle dynamic, but putting in a puzzle thats at least a billion times more complicated than any other silver puzzle. Uncool.

I will put a bet out on the table right now. Riemann will never be solved.
Billion to One will be solved at least in the next year or two. Reimann...
will never be solved, but lets put a definite number on this, 63 years from now, it will still be unsolved. Ill be 100 or so, or dead.

...And really i hope im wrong.

[aliendial]

I feel certain that MC never expected an actual solve for Riemann's. So it must not be important to have a solve. Or the solve they are looking for is not the proof but something else.

[cmlobue]

[jonc]

Just a thought I had, but as everyone knows, public key cryptography/RSA is based around the distribution of primes (in so much that we can't yet predict them).

Maybe this is a 13th labour type of problem, and we have to crack a public key? Maybe the key to Perplex City (the reason City is in white)?

[EvilGenius]

I'm not sure that it hasn't been tried before but I am certain that the answer is not "lemon curry", for reasons too astonishing to relate in this post . . .

[DarkHuman]

how long would it take 1 computer running a simple prime sequence, checking for ALL previous numbers take.???? far too loooooong i take it