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Collatz Conjecture
The Collatz conjecture is one of the most famous unsolved problems in mathematics. The conjecture asks whether repeating two simple arithmetic operations will eventually transform every positive integer into 1. It concerns sequences of integers in which each term is obtained from the previous term as follows: if the previous term is even, the next term is one half of the previous term. If the previous term is odd, the next term is 3 times the previous term plus 1. The conjecture is that these sequences always reach 1, no matter which positive integer is chosen to start the sequence. It is named after mathematician Lothar Collatz, who introduced the idea in 1937, two years after receiving his doctorate. It is also known as the problem, the conjecture, the Ulam conjecture (after Stanisław Ulam), Kakutani's problem (after Shizuo Kakutani), the Thwaites conjecture (after Sir Bryan Thwaites), Hasse's algorithm (after Helmut Hasse), or the Syracuse problem. The sequence of n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terence Tao
Terence Chi-Shen Tao (; born 17 July 1975) is an Australian-American mathematician. He is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he holds the James and Carol Collins chair. His research includes topics in harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, algebraic combinatorics, arithmetic combinatorics, geometric combinatorics, probability theory, compressed sensing and analytic number theory. Tao was born to ethnic Chinese immigrant parents and raised in Adelaide. Tao won the Fields Medal in 2006 and won the Royal Medal and Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics in 2014. He is also a 2006 MacArthur Fellow. Tao has been the author or co-author of over three hundred research papers. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest living mathematicians and has been referred to as the "Mozart of mathematics". Life and career Family Tao's parents are first-generation immigrants from Hong Kong to Australia.''Wen Wei Po'', Page A4, 24 Au ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Limit Theorem
In probability theory, the central limit theorem (CLT) establishes that, in many situations, when independent random variables are summed up, their properly normalized sum tends toward a normal distribution even if the original variables themselves are not normally distributed. The theorem is a key concept in probability theory because it implies that probabilistic and statistical methods that work for normal distributions can be applicable to many problems involving other types of distributions. This theorem has seen many changes during the formal development of probability theory. Previous versions of the theorem date back to 1811, but in its modern general form, this fundamental result in probability theory was precisely stated as late as 1920, thereby serving as a bridge between classical and modern probability theory. If X_1, X_2, \dots, X_n, \dots are random samples drawn from a population with overall mean \mu and finite variance and if \bar_n is the sample mean of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riho Terras (mathematician)
Riho Terras (1939–2005) was an Estonian-American mathematician. He was born in Tartu, Estonia and moved to Ulm, Germany before starting school. In 1951 he migrated to United States along with his mother. In 1965, he was given the Milton Abramowitz award for his studies at the University of Maryland. He finished his PhD in 1970 at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is known for the ''Terras theorem'' about the Collatz conjecture, published in 1976, which proved that the conjecture holds for "almost all" numbers and established bounds for the conjecture. He married fellow mathematician Audrey Terras Audrey Anne Terras (born September 10, 1942) is an American mathematician who works primarily in number theory. Her research has focused on quantum chaos and on various types of zeta functions. Early life and education Audrey Terras was born Sep .... References Estonian emigrants to the United States 1939 births 2005 deaths Estonian mathematicians 20th-cent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Almost All
In mathematics, the term "almost all" means "all but a negligible amount". More precisely, if X is a set, "almost all elements of X" means "all elements of X but those in a negligible subset of X". The meaning of "negligible" depends on the mathematical context; for instance, it can mean finite, countable, or null. In contrast, "almost no" means "a negligible amount"; that is, "almost no elements of X" means "a negligible amount of elements of X". Meanings in different areas of mathematics Prevalent meaning Throughout mathematics, "almost all" is sometimes used to mean "all (elements of an infinite set) but finitely many". This use occurs in philosophy as well. Similarly, "almost all" can mean "all (elements of an uncountable set) but countably many". Examples: * Almost all positive integers are greater than 1012. * Almost all prime numbers are odd (2 is the only exception). * Almost all polyhedra are irregular (as there are only nine exceptions: the five platonic solids and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
P-adic Numbers
In mathematics, the -adic number system for any prime number extends the ordinary arithmetic of the rational numbers in a different way from the extension of the rational number system to the real and complex number systems. The extension is achieved by an alternative interpretation of the concept of "closeness" or absolute value. In particular, two -adic numbers are considered to be close when their difference is divisible by a high power of : the higher the power, the closer they are. This property enables -adic numbers to encode congruence information in a way that turns out to have powerful applications in number theory – including, for example, in the famous proof of Fermat's Last Theorem by Andrew Wiles. These numbers were first described by Kurt Hensel in 1897, though, with hindsight, some of Ernst Kummer's earlier work can be interpreted as implicitly using -adic numbers.Translator's introductionpage 35 "Indeed, with hindsight it becomes apparent that a discret ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Collatz Conjecture
The Collatz conjecture is one of the most famous unsolved problems in mathematics. The conjecture asks whether repeating two simple arithmetic operations will eventually transform every positive integer into 1. It concerns sequences of integers in which each term is obtained from the previous term as follows: if the previous term is even, the next term is one half of the previous term. If the previous term is odd, the next term is 3 times the previous term plus 1. The conjecture is that these sequences always reach 1, no matter which positive integer is chosen to start the sequence. It is named after mathematician Lothar Collatz, who introduced the idea in 1937, two years after receiving his doctorate. It is also known as the problem, the conjecture, the Ulam conjecture (after Stanisław Ulam), Kakutani's problem (after Shizuo Kakutani), the Thwaites conjecture (after Sir Bryan Thwaites), Hasse's algorithm (after Helmut Hasse), or the Syracuse problem. The sequence of n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Counterexamples
A counterexample is any exception to a generalization. In logic a counterexample disproves the generalization, and does so rigorously in the fields of mathematics and philosophy. For example, the fact that "John Smith is not a lazy student" is a counterexample to the generalization “students are lazy”, and both a counterexample to, and disproof of, the universal quantification “all students are lazy.” In mathematics, the term "counterexample" is also used (by a slight abuse) to refer to examples which illustrate the necessity of the full hypothesis of a theorem. This is most often done by considering a case where a part of the hypothesis is not satisfied and the conclusion of the theorem does not hold. In mathematics In mathematics, counterexamples are often used to prove the boundaries of possible theorems. By using counterexamples to show that certain conjectures are false, mathematical researchers can then avoid going down blind alleys and learn to modify conjectures ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pólya Conjecture
In number theory, the Pólya conjecture (or Pólya's conjecture) stated that "most" (i.e., 50% or more) of the natural numbers less than any given number have an ''odd'' number of prime factors. The conjecture was set forth by the Hungarian mathematician George Pólya in 1919, and proved false in 1958 by C. Brian Haselgrove. Though mathematicians typically refer to this statement as the Pólya conjecture, Pólya never actually conjectured that the statement was true; rather, he showed that the truth of the statement would imply the Riemann hypothesis. For this reason, it is more accurately called "Pólya's problem". The size of the smallest counterexample is often used to demonstrate the fact that a conjecture can be true for many cases and still fail to hold in general, providing an illustration of the strong law of small numbers. Statement The Pólya conjecture states that for any ''n'' > 1, if the natural numbers less than or equal to ''n'' (excluding 0) are parti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Power Of Two
A power of two is a number of the form where is an integer, that is, the result of exponentiation with number two as the base and integer as the exponent. In a context where only integers are considered, is restricted to non-negative values, so there are 1, 2, and 2 multiplied by itself a certain number of times. The first ten powers of 2 for non-negative values of are: : 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, ... Because two is the base of the binary numeral system, powers of two are common in computer science. Written in binary, a power of two always has the form 100...000 or 0.00...001, just like a power of 10 in the decimal system. Computer science Two to the exponent of , written as , is the number of ways the bits in a binary word of length can be arranged. A word, interpreted as an unsigned integer, can represent values from 0 () to () inclusively. Corresponding signed integer values can be positive, negative and zero; see signed n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
