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The Uncracked Problem with 33 - Numberphile

Numberphile

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  • Recommended by 1 person: 1 on Hacker News.
  • Presented by Tim Browning, University of Bristol

Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

1.9M views10 years ago1 recommendation

Computer scienceMath for programmersComputation and complexity

Tim Browning explains the sum-of-three-cubes Diophantine equation and why 33 was historically a difficult number to solve.

Update March 2019: 8866128975287528^3+(-8778405442862239)^3+(-2736111468807040)^3 33 is the lowest unsolved problem in the world of "summing three cubes". But 30 was also a tough nut to crack! More links & stuff in full description below ↓↓↓ Featuring Tim Browning from the University of Bristol. Taxi Cab Numbers: youtu.be/LzjaDKVC4iY Fermat's Last Theorem: youtu.be/qiNcEguuFSA Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/numberphile NUMBERPHILE Website: numberphile.com/ Numberphile on Facebook: facebook.com/numberphile Numberphile tweets: twitter.com/numberphile Subscribe: bit.ly/Numberphile_Sub Numberphile is supported by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI): bit.ly/MSRINumberphile Videos by Brady Haran Brady's videos subreddit: reddit.com/r/BradyHaran/ Brady's latest videos across all channels: bradyharanblog.com/ Sign up for (occasional) emails: eepurl.com/YdjL9 Numberphile T-Shirts: teespring.com/stores/numberphile Other merchandise: store.dftba.com/collections/numberphile THANKS TO PATREON SUPPORTERS Jeff Straathof Ken Baron Today I Found Out Roman Urbanovski Joanna & Mehdi Christian Cooper Peggy Youell John Buchan Bill Shillito Andrzej 'Yester' Fiedukowicz Susan Silver Lê OK Merli Spiked Math Filipe Junqueira RexDex NHM Alminji Thomas Buckingham Peter Kær Henry Reich plusunim Tracy Parry Stan Ciprian Elias Jonathan List Tyler O'Connor Keith Vertrees Jordan Smith Valentin Kristian Joensen Rich Pantano James P Buckley Michael Paul Bates Michael Surrago George Greene Arnas

Why it's here

1 person recommends this

What people say. Recommended as an engaging introduction to Diophantine equations and the sum-of-three-cubes problem.

db48xon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: Fermat's Last Theorem with More Terms: Why Does It Stop at 3?”

It's an open question that has been studied for thousands of years. This type of equation (a polynomial with integer coefficients) is called a Diophantine equation; you can look it up on Wikipedia. Or watch videos about it: link to this video

heinrichfon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Sum-of-Three-Cubes Problem Solved for ‘Stubborn’ Number 33”

Numberphile video on the topic with Andrew Booker: link which is a followup from the 2015 episode link to this video when the 33 problem was unsolved. The announcement elicited this Mathoverflow discussion about "mic drop" moments in mathematics: link

jerfon Hacker News • Mentions

On “42 is found to be the sum of three cubes”

I only recently heard what I think is a pretty solid answer to this question 1 that put it this way: We've pretty much got addition nailed down. We're pretty solid on multiplication. However, we are surprisingly weak mathematically when we try to put the two together; you can write down some extremely small math statements that baffled mathematicians for centuries, and for such statements that we have solutions for, they often get into very, very complicated math. So you have things like Fermat's Last Theorum, or if you prefer, the Question: For a^n + b^n = c^n, are there any solutions with n > 2 for integers? Note how it's just multiplication and addition on the integers. There are simple…