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Unsolved Problems in Mathematical

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Unsolved Problems

There are many unsolved problems in mathematics. Some prominent outstanding


unsolved problems (as well as some which are not necessarily so well known) include

1. The Goldbach conjecture.

2. The Riemann hypothesis.

3. The conjecture that there exists a Hadamard matrix for every positive multiple of 4.

4. The twin prime conjecture (i.e., the conjecture that there are an infinite number of twin
primes).

5. Determination of whether NP-problems are actually P-problems.

6. The Collatz problem.

7. Proof that the 196-algorithm does not terminate when applied to the number 196.

8. Proof that 10 is a solitary number.

9. Finding a formula for the probability that two elements chosen at random generate the
symmetric group .

10. Solving the happy end problem for arbitrary .

11. Finding an Euler brick whose space diagonal is also an integer.

12. Proving which numbers can be represented as a sum of three or four (positive or
negative) cubic numbers.

13. Lehmer's Mahler measure problem and Lehmer's totient problem on the existence of
composite numbers such that , where is the totient function.

14. Determining if the Euler-Mascheroni constant is irrational.

15. Deriving an analytic form for the square site percolation threshold.

16. Determining if any odd perfect numbers exist.

The Clay Mathematics Institute (http://www.claymath.org/millennium/) of Cambridge,


Massachusetts (CMI) has named seven "Millennium Prize Problems," selected by
focusing on important classic questions in mathematics that have resisted solution over
the years. A $7 million prize fund has been established for the solution to these problems,
with $1 million allocated to each. The problems consist of the Riemann hypothesis,
Poincaré conjecture, Hodge conjecture, Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture, solution of the
Navier-Stokes equations, formulation of Yang-Mills theory, and determination of
whether NP-problems are actually P-problems.

In 1900, David Hilbert proposed a list of 23 outstanding problems in mathematics


(Hilbert's problems), a number of which have now been solved, but some of which
remain open. In 1912, Landau proposed four simply stated problems, now known as
Landau's problems, which continue to defy attack even today. One hundred years after
Hilbert, Smale (2000) proposed a list of 18 outstanding problems.

K. S. Brown, D. Eppstein, S. Finch, and C. Kimberling maintain webpages of unsolved


problems in mathematics. Classic texts on unsolved problems in various areas of
mathematics are Croft et al. (1991), in geometry, and Guy (2004), in number theory.

SEE ALSO: Beal's Conjecture, Catalan's Conjecture, Fermat's Last Theorem, Hilbert's
Problems, Kepler Conjecture, Landau's Problems, Mathematics Contests, Mathematics
Prizes, Poincaré Conjecture, Problem, Solved Problems, Szemerédi's Theorem, Twin
Primes

REFERENCES:

Clay Mathematics Institute. "Millennium Prize Problems."


http://www.claymath.org/millennium/.

Croft, H. T.; Falconer, K. J.; and Guy, R. K. Unsolved Problems in Geometry. New York:
Springer-Verlag, p. 3, 1991.

Demaine, E. D.; Mitchell, J. S. B.; and O'Rourke, J. (Eds.). "The Open Problems Project."
http://cs.smith.edu/~orourke/TOPP/.

Emden-Weinert, T. "Graphs: Theory-Algorithms-Complexity."


http://people.freenet.de/Emden-Weinert/graphs.html.

Eppstein, D. "Open Problems." http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/junkyard/open.html.

Finch, S. "Unsolved Problems."


http://www.mathsoft.com/mathsoft_resources/unsolved_problems/.

Guy, R. K. Unsolved Problems in Number Theory, 3rd ed. New York: Springer-Verlag,
2004.
Kimberling, C. "Unsolved Problems and Rewards."
http://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/integer/unsolved.html.

Klee, V. "Some Unsolved Problems in Plane Geometry." Math. Mag. 52, 131-145, 1979.

MathPages. "Most Wanted List of Elementary Unsolved Problems."


http://www.mathpages.com/home/mwlist.htm.

Meschkowski, H. Unsolved and Unsolvable Problems in Geometry. London: Oliver &


Boyd, 1966.

Ogilvy, C. S. Tomorrow's Math: Unsolved Problems for the Amateur, 2nd ed. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1972.

Ogilvy, C. S. "Some Unsolved Problems of Modern Geometry." Ch. 11 in Excursions in


Geometry. New York: Dover, pp. 143-153, 1990.

Ramachandra, K. "Many Famous Conjectures on Primes; Meagre But Precious Progress


of a Deep Nature." Proc. Indian Nat. Sci. Acad. Part A 64, 643-650, 1998.

Smale, S. "Mathematical Problems for the Next Century." Math. Intelligencer 20, No. 2,
7-15, 1998.

Smale, S. "Mathematical Problems for the Next Century." In Mathematics: Frontiers and
Perspectives 2000 (Ed. V. Arnold, M. Atiyah, P. Lax, and B. Mazur). Providence, RI:
Amer. Math. Soc., 2000.

Stephan, R. "Prove or Disprove. 100 Conjectures from the OEIS." 27 Sep 2004.
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/math.CO/0409509/.

Stephan, R. "Do you have a comment or news on conjectures in the article


math.CO/0409509?" http://www.ark.in-berlin.de/conj.txt.

van Mill, J. and Reed, G. M. (Eds.). Open Problems in Topology. New York: Elsevier,
1990.

Weisstein, E. W. "Books about Mathematics Problems."


http://www.ericweisstein.com/encyclopedias/books/MathematicsProblems.html.

West, D. "Open Problems--Graph Theory and Combinatorics."


http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~west/openp/.

Wolfram, S. "Open Problems & Projects."


http://www.wolframscience.com/openproblems/NKSOpenProblems.pdf.
CITE THIS AS:

Weisstein, Eric W. "Unsolved Problems." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource.


http://mathworld.wolfram.com/UnsolvedProblems.html

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