Two Students Shoot Down a Widely Believed Math Conjecture | Quanta Magazine
Mathematicians thought they were on the cusp of proving a conjecture about the ancient structures known as Apollonian circles. But a summer project would lead to its downfall.
Hasnain says:
““I always find it fascinating when new mathematics is born out of just purely looking at data,” Fuchs said. “Without it, it’s really hard to imagine that [they] would have stumbled upon this.”
Stange added that none of this would have happened without the low-stakes summer project. “Serendipity and an attitude of playful exploration both have such a huge role in discovery,” she said.
“It was pure coincidence,” Haag said. “If I didn’t go big enough, we wouldn’t have noticed it.” The work bodes well for the future of number theory. “You can glean understanding of mathematics through your intuition, through proofs,” Stange said. “And you trust that a lot because you spent a lot of time thinking about it. But you can’t argue with the data.””
Posted on 2023-08-10T17:36:24+0000