35 Riemann Reason with Dr Alex Kontorovich
Show notes
The mysterious world of the Riemann Hypothesis. This is about an unsolved problem relating to prime numbers.
Bernhard Riemann was a German mathematician who lived in the 19th century and along with a lot of work on geometry also looked at prime numbers.
If you're finding this hard to grasp don't worry. Me too. And this episode is not just about this, it's about the nature of things that are unsolved and why the search for solutions itself is important. My guest is Dr Alex Kontorovich professor of Mathematics at Rutgers university in New Jersey, He takes me on a tour of 18th and 19th century geniuses who couldn't stop thinking about prime numbers.
There will be bits where you'd really want to visualise what's going on. For that, check out the link below
You'll hear me butt in -in the edit- with some simple explanations of things I didn't understand at the time. I didn't interrupt at the time because I didn't know what queesiotn to ask and wanted to appear smarter than i was. You know, a tale as old as time.
How I Learned to Love and Fear the Riemann Hypothesis | Quanta Magazine