Mertens

I recently spent some time on the formidable website Numberphile which explains mathematical ideas, some important, some recreational, in short and accessible videos. Definitely worth checking out. One of the videos that is most relevant to us explains the Riemann Hypothesis: As mentioned before, it’s not easy to explain the details and the beauty of the Riemann Hypothesis in few words, but I think the video definitely succeeds in compressing the essentials into 17 minutes. [Read More]

One of the problems with explaining the Riemann Hypothesis is that its fascination comes from its deep connection to prime numbers, but its definition is in terms of complex analysis which requires a fair deal of undergraduate mathematics to understand – and that is before you even got started to grasp what the heck the zeta-zeros have to do with the distribution of primes. My “cocktail party explanation” of the Riemann Hypothesis would usually be something like: “The prime numbers are as equally distributed as you could wish for. [Read More]