Chinese mathematician Zhang Yitang
Red Star News Reporter | Hu Yiwen Intern | Yi Qianxue
Editor | Qiu Tian
67-year-old Zhang Yitang may be famous all over the world after 9 years. Recently, it was rumored online that the famous Chinese mathematician Zhang Yitang revealed at an event at the Peking University New York Alumni Association that he had solved the Landau Siegel zero-point conjecture, and the preprint of the paper will be launched and submitted soon.
Two alumni of Zhang Yitang when he was studying in the Department of Mathematics of Peking University and professors from a well-known university confirmed to the Red Star News reporter that Zhang Yitang claimed that he had overcome this problem.
talked about whether the proof was successful. One of the interviewed alumni , a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, a vice president and professor of the president of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), Luo Zhiquan, said: "I haven't read the proof, it's hard to say now," but he added, "He is a serious mathematician, and everyone will choose to believe his words."
According to Pengpai News , Zhao Zhichen, a graduate of physics majoring in Peking University in New York, USA, and a doctor of high-energy theoretical physics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA, also confirmed that he heard Zhang Yitang's self-report on solving this problem.
"It feels like a person was hit twice by lightning."
Zhang Yitang's colleague Jeffrey Stopple once said in an interview with the school newspaper of the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) that Zhang Yitang is unlikely to solve this problem during his tenure at UCSB. "In a sense, it's like a person being hit twice by lightning."
Landau-Segel Zero Point Conjecture is closely related to the famous Riemann Conjecture . Zhang Yitang once stated in an academic report that the Landau-Siegel zero-point problem is a bottleneck in number theory. If solved, it will bring about a series of inferences, which will have a great impact in analytical and algebraic number theory. It can be said to be a revolution.
Zhang Yitang, who has been unknown for more than 20 years, has pure love for mathematics and is even more ambitious. He once said in an interview: "The Riemann conjecture is generally recognized in the mathematics community. Neither the Goldbach conjecture or twin primes cannot be compared with it. It is the most important and famous problem."
Zhang Yitang also said in his report that his friend and American mathematician Brian Conrey said, "There are two universes. In the first universe, there is no Landau Siegel zero point, but in the second universe, there is this zero point. The problem now is that we do not know which universe we live in."
Assuming that Landau Siegel zero point exists, then the Riemann conjecture is falsified. In this case, the twin prime conjecture can be further proved. "This will directly become the most amazing achievement since the Fermat's Theorem in 1995." A university mathematics professor who had heard Zhang Yitang's report on the Landau Siegel Zero Point Conjecture told the Red Star News reporter.
However, academic speculation that Zhang Yitang proved that Landau Siegel's zero point does not exist, which is also his long-standing idea. "This also narrows the search range for conquering Riemann's conjecture," the professor added. "The Riemann conjecture should still be safe. If the zero point does not exist, the Riemann conjecture is wrong, which would be too explosive." Zhang Yitang's alumnus of the Department of Mathematics of Peking University, Wang Xuefeng, now the presidential professor and dean of the Graduate School of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen).
The late mathematician
Zhang Yitang published a paper "Bornated Distance between Prime Numbers" in the internationally authoritative Mathematics Annual in 2013, proving for the first time that there are infinite numbers with limited pairs of prime numbers, which has become a decisive progress in solving the century-old problem twin prime number conjecture .
At that time, "no one knew him". He was just a lecturer at an ordinary university in the United States. He was 58 years old when he was "late to greatness". After becoming famous, he became a full professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of New Hampshire and went to UCSB to teach in 2015. He won the Cole Number Theory Award in 2014, the MacArthur Genius Award in 2014, and the Qiushi Outstanding Scientist Award in 2016.
This pride of the mathematics department of Peking University in 78 was not smooth when he was studying for a doctorate at Purdue University in the United States. He did not get a teaching position after graduation. He went to in Kentucky as an accountant, in Northeastern United States as a lecturer, in New Hampshire University as a lecturer, but after more than 20 years of namelessness, he became famous all over the world with a paper.
However, this is just a "side-escape" during his research. Afterwards, he returned to the Landau Siegel Zero Point Conjecture, which he had been thinking about since his youth.
In fact, he had already come up with the idea of proving that it does not exist. In 2007, Zhang Yitang published a preprint article about the Landau Siegel Zero Point Conjecture that has not been officially published so far. He himself admitted that the article is incomplete.
By 2019, according to People, Zhang Yitang said that "there was no major obstacle at that time, and the rest were some technical problems."
Whether Zhang Yitang's proof is correct is still unknown. He once said in an interview with Qianjiang Evening News: "Even if I don't succeed, I won't feel too regretful. I still feel very valuable in this pursuit."
It was in this interview that Zhang Yitang used two lines of Du Fu to describe his mood: "Yu Xin is the most bleak in his life, and his poems in his late years touched Jiangguan."
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