Some unsolved problems from the History of Mathematics
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Problems are those difficult questions requiring solutions - and mathematics is full of them! Famous mathematical problems come from all kind of areas of mathematics, and have all kinds of stories behind them - some were posed by mathematicians in their own notes and diaries (and were not aimed at anyone else), some were to be found in correspondence between mathematicians, and some popped up in speeches at the mathematical conferences.
Some of the famous mathematical problems have been solved, and are to be found on the page dedicated to the solved problems; but some others are listed here. Given below are five such problems to get you started; if you have an idea of a problem that you believe should be added to this list, let me know!
- The Goldbach conjecture
- The twin prime conjecture
- Proof that 196-algorithm does not terminate when applied to the number 196
- Proof that 10 is a solitary number
- Determining whether any odd perfect numbers exist
- Find about some famous problems from the history of mathematics from the series of lectures given at the Royal Institution by Marcus du Sautoy from the University of Oxford.
Do you know which famous mathematical problem was described in the margin of Diophantus' Arithmetica?
And who was the problem maker?
You can also learn about some other mathematical problems posed by a famous mathematician Hilbert in 1900. Or find about the difference between conjectures and theorems, and learn about some of the most famous theorems.
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