Genius of the Rules-Style System

Chapter 347: Chapter 230: The Youngest, Most Talented Mathematician!

The title of Zhao Yi’s fourth paper was quite long, with the main title being "Bounded Interval of Primes" and the subtitle being "Proof of the Existence of Infinite Prime Combinations Less Than or Equal to 246".

The content was as the title suggested.

To a layman, the content seemed to bear little relation to the twin prime conjecture, yet in fact they were directly associated, as the twin prime conjecture could be loosely translated as, "Can we find a positive number so that there are infinitely many pairs of primes less than this given positive number?"

In the conjecture of twin primes, this number is 2.

Zhao Yi’s paper demonstrated that this positive integer is less than or equal to 246.

The difference between the two is quite significant.

Zhao Yi’s initial proof dealt with a number less than or equal to fifty million. After using a series of methods to reduce this number to 246, he found that his methods no longer worked if he wanted to reduce it further, necessitating the consideration of new methods.

This was undoubtedly a huge project, perhaps on par with proving a highly challenging conjecture, which was why Zhao Yi claimed, "This path is a dead end."

However, the public’s reaction was unexpected.

Domestic media directly called his paper "a critical and most important step in proving the twin prime conjecture."

Perhaps due to Zhao Yi being a domestic scholar, the domestic media was prompt in its response. Within an hour of the publication of the paper, major media outlets had already drawn this conclusion.

This was definitely not a conclusion drawn by the reporters themselves.

The media even conducted special interviews with well-known mathematicians at home, who shared similar views, claiming, "The twin prime conjecture has seen no progress for a hundred years." freeweɓnovel.cѳm

"Zhao Yi’s paper gives a weakened proof of the twin prime conjecture, it is a crucial step."

"Although 246 sounds like a large number, in actuality, it’s quite small. Many years ago, mathematicians asserted that if someone was to give a weakened proof of the twin primes conjecture, the initial number could be over a million, even ten million, or a hundred million."

Although this statement may be difficult for laypeople to understand, Zhao Yi nodded repeatedly, as his initial proof indeed dealt with several tens of millions.

The global mathematical community reacted quickly.

Most media outlets didn’t bother about whether the proof process was correct, because it had been published in "Mathematical Progress". The peer reviewers had also commented, "The proof is correct and is a first-class piece of mathematical work".

So, the chances of the proof process being wrong were minimal.

"Mathematical Progress", after publishing the paper, explicitly pointed out, "This proof marks an important milestone!"

Even some foreign media declared, "The bounded interval of primes is a significant breakthrough in the ultimate number theory problem, the twin prime conjecture!"

Some even suggested, "Its impact on the academic world might surpass Chen Jingrun’s ’1+2’ proof."

The International Mathematical Union also got involved, explaining Zhao Yi’s proof for the general public, with the Goldbach Conjecture used for comparison purposes.

Many people believe that proving ’1+1’ equates to demonstrating ’1+1=2’, a concept often scoffed at; ’1+1’ already equals ’2’, a fundamental mathematical concept that doesn’t need proving.

To understand the Goldbach conjecture, one must first understand the concept of almost primes, which are positive integers with not many prime factors.

Let N be an even number.

Although it can’t be proven that N is the sum of two primes, it could be proven that it can be written as the sum of two almost primes, i.e., N=A+B, where both A and B don’t have many prime factors, say fewer than 10.

The notation "a+b" is used to represent the proposition: every large even number N can be expressed as A+B, where the number of prime factors of A and B are no more than a and b, respectively.

Obviously, Goldbach’s Conjecture can be written as "1+1".

The earliest progress on Goldbach’s Conjecture originates from 1920 when the Norwegian mathematician Brown proved "9+9".

Progress continued after that.

In 1966, the domestic mathematician Chen Jingrun proved "1+2"—every sufficiently large even number can be portrayed as the sum of two numbers, one being a prime number and the other either a prime number or the product of two primes. This is known as "Chen Jingrun’s theorem".

Zhao Yi’s weakened proof for the twin prime conjecture resembled this approach. He made a start by proving "there are infinitely many pairs of prime numbers whose difference is less or equal to 246."

Reducing 246 to 2 could prove the twin prime conjecture.

Danny Wilson, a professor of number theory at San Jose State University, explained, "The distance from 246 to 2 is negligible compared to that from infinity to 246."

In discussing the impact and importance of Zhao Yi’s research, many media outlets also evaluated Zhao Yi personally.

Some mathematicians explicitly stated, "If before, based on his three-dimensional earthquake waveform diagram, Zhao Yi might win the Fields Medal, with his innovative proof for the twin prime conjecture, I dare say now that Zhao Yi’s name will definitely be on the Fields Medal in four years!"

"If not, it would be a scandal for the international mathematical community."

"There’s nothing more meaningful for mathematical research than this!"

With that, many media outlets shifted from addressing Zhao Yi as the ’future recipient of the Fields Medal’, to the ’recipient of the next Fields Medal’.

Thus far, no domestic mathematician has ever received the Fields Medal, which goes to show why the domestic media coverage has been so frenzied--