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Mathematicians Uncover a New Way to Count Prime Numbers | Quanta Magazine

To make progress on one of number theory’s most elementary questions, two mathematicians turned to an unlikely source.

Click to view the original at quantamagazine.org

Hasnain says:

“Even more important, the work demonstrates that the Gowers norm can act as a powerful tool in a new domain. “Because it’s so new, at least in this part of number theory, there is potential to do a bunch of other things with it,” Friedlander said. Mathematicians now hope to broaden the scope of the Gowers norm even further — to try using it to solve other problems in number theory beyond counting primes.

“It’s a lot of fun for me to see things I thought about some time ago have unexpected new applications,” Ziegler said. “It’s like as a parent, when you set your kid free and they grow up and do mysterious, unexpected things.””

Posted on 2025-01-12T18:08:41+0000