Math Scholar

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Ken Ono, Emory University

Don Zagier, Max Planck Institute

Michael Griffin, BYU

Larry Rolen, Vanderbilt University

Introduction

Four mathematicians, Michael Griffin of Brigham Young University, Ken Ono of Emory University (now at University of Virginia), Larry Rolen of Vanderbilt University and Don Zagier of the Max Planck Institute, have proven a significant result that is thought to be on the roadmap to a proof of the most celebrated of unsolved mathematical conjecture, namely the Riemann hypothesis. First, here is some background:

The Riemann hypothesis

The Riemann hypothesis was first posed by the German

Continue reading Mathematicians prove result tied to the Riemann hypothesis

Optimal stacking of oranges.

The sphere-packing problem

The Kepler conjecture is the assertion that the simple scheme of stacking oranges typically seen in a supermarket has the highest possible average density, namely pi/(3 sqrt(2)) = 0.740480489…, for any possible arrangement, regular or irregular. It is named after 17th-century astronomer Johannes Kepler, who first proposed that planets orbited in elliptical paths around the sun.

Hales’ proof of the Kepler conjecture

In the early 1990s, Thomas Hales, following an approach first suggested by Laszlo Fejes Toth in 1953, determined that the maximum density of all possible arrangements could be obtained

Continue reading Researchers use “magic functions” to prove sphere-packing results