Monday, February 2, 2015

Solving an Unsolvable Math Problem

 Unable to get an academic position, Zhang kept the books for a Subway franchise.
 Unable to get an academic position, Zhang kept the books for a Subway franchise.

I don’t see what difference it can make now to reveal that I passed high-school math only because I cheated. I could add and subtract and multiply and divide, but I entered the wilderness when words became equations and x’s and y’s. Sounds like me. :) On test days, I sat next to Bob Isner or Bruce Gelfand or Ted Chapman or Donny Chamberlain—smart boys whose handwriting I could read—and divided my attention between his desk and the teacher’s eyes.

Having skipped me, the talent for math concentrated extravagantly in one of my nieces, Amie Wilkinson, a professor at the University of Chicago. From Amie I first heard about Yitang Zhang, a solitary, part-time calculus teacher at the University of New Hampshire who received several prizes, including a MacArthur award in September, for solving a problem that had been open for more than a hundred and fifty years.

6 comments:

  1. I tried to read his paper and am proud to say that out of its 115 pages I got 1/4th (that's a fraction) through the first.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, my dear brother, that was 100% more than I got through, but that is understandable......:)

      Delete
  2. Happy Birthday, Brockie Boy !!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yer' Birthday?? Well here's hoping that it was a happy one Brock👍

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you and it was as Dixie wrote "Happy 22nd Birthday" on my birthday card! :)

      Delete