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The seventh most popular easily understood unsolved problem on MathOverflow

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Re: The seventh most popular easily understood unsolved problem on MathOverflow

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pursued and achieved an EE degree plus a couple extra math courses largely because I was "not good at math" as a youth. Nothing like hearing "I don't think math is your subject" from a key adult to light a fire under ones fanny. In hindsight I could have had the same career path with a straight CS degree and much less stress during my college years. No regrets though, math really is fun! Even more so when the class…

When I was about 12yo, I went to the eye doctor with my father (in France). The doctor realized that I had daltonism and told my father in front of me that I would never be an engineer because of that. At school, we had tests to show what we were good at. The guy who came to comment on our tests told me that I should definitely go for something like literature or history. And here I am, an engineer with an extra PhD…

daltonism : color blindness

Had to look it up.

Re: The seventh most popular easily understood unsolved problem on MathOverflow

#93
post #23

One of the comments was "the Collatz conjecture feels like we're missing a branch of mathematics", or something to that effect. I followed that rabbit hole a bit and found the Plya conjecture[0], which was disproven when a counter example was found at approximately 10^361. Here I was naively thinking that if no counter examples were found in the first, say, 10^10 numbers, no counter examples should exist. If only it…

>Here I was naively thinking that if no counter examples were found in the first, say, 10^10 numbers, no counter examples should exist why on earth would you ever think that

[deleted]

Re: The seventh most popular easily understood unsolved problem on MathOverflow

#94
post #46

>> One annoying thing about both the Collatz and Goldbach conjectures is that if they are unprovable, it's also impossible to prove they're unprovable (unless math is inconsistent). This has been proved! That’s the most fun thing I’ve read all day!

one of the saddest too

Re: The seventh most popular easily understood unsolved problem on MathOverflow

#95
post #38

Here's a fairly easily understood problem, which if you could solve it would make you famous in the mathematical world and win you a million dollar prize: For a positive integer n: Let H(n) = 1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + ... + 1/n Let D(n) = the sum of the positive integers that divide n. E.g., D(12) = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 6 + 12 = 28. Prove or disprove that for any positive integer n > 1: D(n) That easy to understand problem turns ou…

Is the log in that equation using a 10 or maybe the natural number e?

Mathematicians almost always use log for the natural logarithm (i.e., base e).

Re: The seventh most popular easily understood unsolved problem on MathOverflow

#96
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely my personal experience. I am absolutely awful at arithmetic, but I think pretty competent at decently advanced mathematics. It's like they say: the only numbers a mathematician needs are 0, 1, and 2 (and just because it's not 1).

In number theory, 2 is often a special case in a lot of theorems. There's something odd about the even prime.

In analysis and its applications, the L^2 norm is also rather special.

Re: The seventh most popular easily understood unsolved problem on MathOverflow

#97
post #51

> One annoying thing about both the Collatz and Goldbach conjectures is that if they are unprovable, it's also impossible to prove they're unprovable (unless math is inconsistent). This has been proved! So is there a countable order of metaprovability? i.e. are there problems that if they're impossible to prove, it's impossible to prove whether it's possible to prove whether they're unprovable, but _that_ can be prov…

[deleted]

Re: The seventh most popular easily understood unsolved problem on MathOverflow

#98
post #23

One of the comments was "the Collatz conjecture feels like we're missing a branch of mathematics", or something to that effect. I followed that rabbit hole a bit and found the Plya conjecture[0], which was disproven when a counter example was found at approximately 10^361. Here I was naively thinking that if no counter examples were found in the first, say, 10^10 numbers, no counter examples should exist. If only it…

>Here I was naively thinking that if no counter examples were found in the first, say, 10^10 numbers, no counter examples should exist why on earth would you ever think that

I think you're being purposely dense. You pretend that it's unusual that a human would view a pattern that has occured 10 billion times and then expect that it would continue forever. But, I'll answer anyway.

It seems that for such a simple problem, involving basic arithmetic and small numbers, 1, 2, and 3, there should be a number N where if you try all examples less than N, you have sufficient "resolution" to reveal all patterns between the numbers. Maybe we could somehow say "if a counter-example exists, it must be smaller than N". I don't know what kind of math would allow us to formalize the possible patterns and what N is, I don't think it's been discovered yet. Maybe such math doesn't exist, but certainly we haven't discovered all mathematical tools for solving such problems, so maybe it does exist.

Re: The seventh most popular easily understood unsolved problem on MathOverflow

#100
post #51

> One annoying thing about both the Collatz and Goldbach conjectures is that if they are unprovable, it's also impossible to prove they're unprovable (unless math is inconsistent). This has been proved! So is there a countable order of metaprovability? i.e. are there problems that if they're impossible to prove, it's impossible to prove whether it's possible to prove whether they're unprovable, but _that_ can be prov…

A couple of things:

> level 2: if not provable (can't prove level 0) then can't prove undecideable. (Goldbach, Collatz)

If you're operating in the ordinary naturals, neither Goldbach nor Collatz are undecidable. The statements are either true or false. The question at hand is whether we can generate a finite proof of that fact in a given axiomatic system. The quote at hand simply said that if no such proof exists (obviously implying the statements are true because otherwise a simple finite proof would be a counter-example) then similarly no finite proof of that lack of existence exists either.

They might be undecidable in other arithmetic systems (implying that some models of those systems would have the statements be true and some would have them be false), but not for the naturals.

> Which means there's no level infinity, since there's no level infinity minus 1 to talk about so it's meaningless. Correct?

When you're making up a new definition, you care about (1) is it coherent (don't want to be like the proverbial Ph.D. who made up an exciting mathematical object and studied it for years before finding out no such objects could exist), (2) what can you deduce about that object, and (3) is it "useful" (for some broad definition thereof). The question of "meaningfulness" can lead you down incorrect paths because it merges (2) and (3). The definition you picked for the broad concept you have in your mind has no level "infinity" because you snuck the naturals into the definition as the indexing set (defined using the successor function). If we strictly look at point (2), yes, there's no "infinity".

The general concept you're looking at though might more naturally fit in a world where there are infinities (i.e., let's look at point (3) a bit more). As a rule of thumb, if you're looking at a set of things indexed by the naturals, especially if they have a successor function, especially if they're defined inductively, especially if their interesting properties are defined in terms of all previous items, it's natural to take a look at indexing via the ordinals and trying to define them via transfinite induction.

For this particular set of things, that may or may not be straightforward. The notions of unprovability, undecidability, ... are a bit intricate, and you need to define them with respect to the system being studied and the system being used to study them. Right now, your inductive definition _seems_ to also require a predecessor function (which, if intrinsic to the property being analyzed would preclude many attempts to wrangle in some infinities), but I wouldn't be surprised if a careful re-writing found that to be an extraneous detail, in which case you could add in a limiting case (defining f(w) in terms of f(n) for all n<w for all limit ordinals w).

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