this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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No Stupid Questions

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What are the most mindblowing things in mathematics? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by cll7793@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
236 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

What concepts or facts do you know from math that is mind blowing, awesome, or simply fascinating?

Here are some I would like to share:

  • Gödel's incompleteness theorems: There are some problems in math so difficult that it can never be solved no matter how much time you put into it.
  • Halting problem: It is impossible to write a program that can figure out whether or not any input program loops forever or finishes running. (Undecidablity)

The Busy Beaver function

Now this is the mind blowing one. What is the largest non-infinite number you know? Graham's Number? TREE(3)? TREE(TREE(3))? This one will beat it easily.

  • The Busy Beaver function produces the fastest growing number that is theoretically possible. These numbers are so large we don't even know if you can compute the function to get the value even with an infinitely powerful PC.
  • In fact, just the mere act of being able to compute the value would mean solving the hardest problems in mathematics.
  • Σ(1) = 1
  • Σ(4) = 13
  • Σ(6) > 10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10 (10s are stacked on each other)
  • Σ(17) > Graham's Number
  • Σ(27) If you can compute this function the Goldbach conjecture is false.
  • Σ(744) If you can compute this function the Riemann hypothesis is false.

Sources:

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[–] Sharkwellington@lemmy.one 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But even famous mathematicians didn't believe it at first.

They emphatically did not believe it at first. Marilyn vos Savant was flooded with about 10,000 letters after publishing the famous 1990 article, and had to write two followup articles to clarify the logic involved.

[–] Artisian@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh that's cool - I had heard one or two examples only. Is there some popular writeup of the story from Savant's view?

[–] Sharkwellington@lemmy.one 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I couldn't tell you - I used the Wikipedia article to reference the specifics and I'm not sure where I first heard about the story. I just remember that the mathematics community dogpiled on her hard for some time and has since completely turned around to accept her answer as correct.

Also relevant - she did not invent the problem, but her article is considered by some to have been what popularized it.