…ther proof of the Riemann Hypothesis (RH) has been proposed by BYU mathematician Xian-Jin Li. Dr. Li posted his proof on the arXiv a few days ago. (Update, 11:05am.) Why I’m Not Holding My Breath. Although it’s tempting to get excited over a proof of RH, here are a few reasons why I’m not holding my breath: Pitkanen’s proof of RH (2001). Withdrawn by author due to errors. Castro & Hahecha’s proofs of RH (2001, 2002, 2006). Approach has been reject…
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…le accelerator in the world (next to the LHC), and employs hundreds of physicists from around the world. Hundreds of physicsts, who had no idea what the hell it meant when they received this in the mail last year: So they decided to publish it a few days ago in Symmetry magazine, requesting that curious code-crackers take up the case. The code has now been nearly cracked by an army of random internet cryptographers. The most progress that I’ve see…
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…eory Change. Can groups do a better job at surviving theory change than individual objects? Here’s one observation that might make us think so: groups are often insensitive to a change in underlying set. So, it’s possible for the group structure of an early scientific theory to be preserved in a later theory, even if the descriptions of objects are not. A toy example: Imagine that some theory leads us to propose the existence of a cube. Suppose th…
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…for your keywords, restricted to Philsci archive. Trust me, this is a real pain-reliever: for example, searching for “van fraassen” returns baloney on Philsci archive’s search engine, while Google returns hundreds of items. For more options, use Google’s advanced search to find what you want. Browse by Category. Only look at the categories you’re interested in. Go to Browse > Subject and select the category you’re interested in. I recommend bookma…
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…eins and arteries of our electronic lives, allowing us to transmit data efficiently across long distances. They function on a very simple principle: light signals can be transmitted by bouncing light bouncing through a hair-thin glass tube. However, the first optical fibers couldn’t even transmit data across a football field — the signal attenuated too quickly as it passed through the fibers. In the 60’s, Kao was able to show that this attenuation…
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