File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2004/lyotard.0409, message 1


Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 08:20:58 +0100
From: "steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk>
Subject: Maths holy grail could bring disaster for internet


all

one has to laugh as another technology is proven not to work...

steve

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Maths holy grail could bring disaster for internet

Two of the seven million dollar challenges that have baffled for more 
than a century may be close to being solved

Tim Radford, science editor
Tuesday September 7, 2004
The Guardian

Mathematicians could be on the verge of solving two separate million 
dollar problems. If they are right - still a big if - and somebody 
really has cracked the so-called Riemann hypothesis, financial disaster 
might follow. Suddenly all cryptic codes could be breakable. No internet 
transaction would be safe.

On the other hand, if somebody has already sorted out the so-called 
Poincaré conjecture, then scientists will understand something profound 
about the nature of spacetime, experts told the British Association 
science festival in Exeter yesterday.

Both problems have stood for a century or more. Each is almost 
dizzyingly arcane: the problems themselves are beyond simple 
explanation, and the candidate answers published on the internet are so 
intractable that they could baffle the biggest brains in the business 
for many months.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1298728,00.html


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