{"id":79717,"date":"2013-06-07T09:58:24","date_gmt":"2013-06-07T07:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=79717"},"modified":"2013-06-07T10:05:44","modified_gmt":"2013-06-07T08:05:44","slug":"r10000000-if-you-can-solve-this-mathematics-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/79717-r10000000-if-you-can-solve-this-mathematics-problem.html","title":{"rendered":"R10,000,000 if you can solve this mathematics problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

The AMS (American Mathematical Society) has announced that the prize for the solution to the Beal Conjecture – a number theory problem, – has been increased to US$1 million (R10,000,000).<\/p>\n

The prize and conjecture are named for D. Andrew \u201cAndy\u201d Beal, a Dallas banker who has a strong interest in number theory and who provided the funds for the Beal Prize.<\/p>\n

The Beal Conjecture states that the only solutions to the equation A^x + B^y = C^z, when A, B, C, are positive integers, and x, y, and z are positive integers greater than 2, are those in which A, B, and C have a common factor.<\/p>\n

By way of example, 3^3 + 6^3 = 3^5, but the numbers that are the bases have a common factor of 3, so the equation does not disprove the theorem; it is not a counterexample.<\/p>\n

The truth of the Beal Conjecture implies Fermat’s Last Theorem, which states that there are no solutions to the equation a^n + b^n = c^n where a, b, and c are positive integers and n is a positive integer greater than 2.<\/p>\n

More than three hundred years ago, Pierre de Fermat claimed he had a proof, but did not leave a record of it.<\/p>\n

\"Andrew<\/a>

Andrew Wiles<\/p><\/div>\n

The theorem was finally proved in the 1990s by Andrew Wiles, together with Richard Taylor.<\/p>\n

Both the Beal Conjecture and Fermat’s Last Theorem are typical of many statements in number theory: easy to say, but extremely difficult to prove.<\/p>\n

Andy Beal first established the prize for a solution to the Beal Conjecture in 1997. To date, no correct solution to the problem has been found.<\/p>\n

The current funding is an increase from the previously funded amount of $100,000 (R1,000,000). Funds for the prize are held in trust by the AMS.<\/p>\n

The prize for solving the Beal Conjecture is not the only million-dollar prize for the solution of a mathematics problem.<\/p>\n

In 2000, the Clay Mathematics Institute created seven $1-million-dollar prizes for problems now known as the Millennium Problems.<\/p>\n

One, the Poincar\u00e9 Conjecture, was solved by Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman in works he made public in 2003 (he turned down the monetary prize).<\/p>\n

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R10,000,000 prize for Mathemtics problems to inspire young mathematicians and spur general interest in mathematics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":79719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[36,19809,19811],"class_list":["post-79717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-active","tag-ams","tag-fermat-last-theorem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79717"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79723,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79717\/revisions\/79723"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}