Finding a Proof of the Riemann Hypothesis is regarded as the greatest unsolved problem in mathematics. It was set by Bernhard Riemann in 1859 and has resisted all attempts at proof by the world’s best mathematicians ever since. It is the only remaining unsolved problem of a list set by Hilbert at the start of the twentieth century. The urgency of resolving it has increased in recent years since Andrew Wiles presented his solution to Fermat’s Last Theorem ten years ago which was reagrded at the time as the Holy Grail problem of number theory. Solving the Riemann Hypothesis is also the goal of one of the problems designated by the Clay Institute with a prize of a million dollars.
The Riemann Hypothesis is a statements about the zeros of the Zeta function and it is known to be related to a whole host of conjectures about the distribution of prime numbers. In the last few decades mathematicians and physicists have made connections between the problem and areas of quantum physics related to chaos theory. This suggests that a solution would shed light on many deep results about the universe. Anyone interested in more details should read one of the excellent paperbacks on the subject such as “The Music of the Primes” by Marcus du Sautoy.
Today a new proof of the Riemann Hypothesis by Raghunath Acharya appeared on the internet at http://arxiv.org/abs/0903.3973. If you happen to be an expert on quantum physics and number theory please go and check it and let us know what you think. Many proposed proofs of the hypothesis have been published but later withdrawn when an error has been pointed out. In our humble opinion, this proof is sophisticated enough to stand a chance of being correct but it does not touch on the really deep abstract ideas already thought to be relevant to the problem, so if it is correct its directness will be a surprise to many.
