In mathematics, a conjecture is a conclusion or a proposition that is proffered on a tentative basis without proof. Some conjectures, such as the Riemann hypothesis or Fermat's conjecture, have shaped much of mathematical history as new areas of mathematics are developed in order to prove them.
The number π is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, approximately equal to 3.14159. The number π appears in many formulae across mathematics and physics. It is an irrational number, meaning that it cannot be expressed exactly as a ratio of two integers, although fractions such as are commonly used to approximate it. Consequently, its decimal representation never ends, nor enters a permanently repeating pattern. It is a transcendental number, meaning that it cannot be a solution of an equation involving only finite sums, products, powers, and integers. The transcendence of π implies that it is impossible to solve the ancient challenge of squaring the circle with a compass and straightedge. The decimal digits of π appear to be randomly distributed, but no proof of this conjecture has been found.
In mathematics and formal logic, a theorem is a statement that has been proven, or can be proven. The proof of a theorem is a logical argument that uses the inference rules of a deductive system to establish that the theorem is a logical consequence of the axioms and previously proved theorems.
The Collatz conjecture is one of the most famous unsolved problems in mathematics. The conjecture asks whether repeating two simple arithmetic operations will eventually transform every positive integer into 1. It concerns sequences of integers in which each term is obtained from the previous term as follows: if a term is even, the next term is one half of it. If a term is odd, the next term is 3 times the previous term plus 1. The conjecture is that these sequences always reach 1, no matter which positive integer is chosen to start the sequence. The conjecture has been shown to hold for all positive integers up to 2.95×1020, but no general proof has been found.
David Harold Bailey is a mathematician and computer scientist. He received his B.S. in mathematics from Brigham Young University in 1972 and his Ph.D. in mathematics from Stanford University in 1976. He worked for 14 years as a computer scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, and then from 1998 to 2013 as a Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He is now retired from the Berkeley Lab.
Borwein's algorithm was devised by Jonathan and Peter Borwein to calculate the value of . This and other algorithms can be found in the book Pi and the AGM – A Study in Analytic Number Theory and Computational Complexity.
Jonathan Michael Borwein was a Scottish mathematician who held an appointment as Laureate Professor of mathematics at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He was a close associate of David H. Bailey, and they have been prominent public advocates of experimental mathematics.
Peter Benjamin Borwein was a Canadian mathematician and a professor at Simon Fraser University. He is known as a co-author of the paper which presented the Bailey–Borwein–Plouffe algorithm for computing π.
A computer-assisted proof is a mathematical proof that has been at least partially generated by computer.
Approximations for the mathematical constant pi in the history of mathematics reached an accuracy within 0.04% of the true value before the beginning of the Common Era. In Chinese mathematics, this was improved to approximations correct to what corresponds to about seven decimal digits by the 5th century.
Bellard's formula is used to calculate the nth digit of π in base 16.
Tanh-sinh quadrature is a method for numerical integration introduced by Hidetoshi Takahashi and Masatake Mori in 1974. It is especially applied where singularities or infinite derivatives exist at one or both endpoints.
The Inverse Symbolic Calculator is an online number checker established July 18, 1995 by Peter Benjamin Borwein, Jonathan Michael Borwein and Simon Plouffe of the Canadian Centre for Experimental and Constructive Mathematics. A user will input a number and the Calculator will use an algorithm to search for and calculate closed-form expressions or suitable functions that have roots near this number. Hence, the calculator is of great importance for those working in numerical areas of experimental mathematics.
An integer relation between a set of real numbers x1, x2, ..., xn is a set of integers a1, a2, ..., an, not all 0, such that
In mathematics, the Riemann hypothesis is the conjecture that the Riemann zeta function has its zeros only at the negative even integers and complex numbers with real part 1/2. Many consider it to be the most important unsolved problem in pure mathematics. It is of great interest in number theory because it implies results about the distribution of prime numbers. It was proposed by Bernhard Riemann, after whom it is named.
This is a timeline of pure and applied mathematics history. It is divided here into three stages, corresponding to stages in the development of mathematical notation: a "rhetorical" stage in which calculations are described purely by words, a "syncopated" stage in which quantities and common algebraic operations are beginning to be represented by symbolic abbreviations, and finally a "symbolic" stage, in which comprehensive notational systems for formulas are the norm.
The Bailey–Borwein–Plouffe formula is a formula for π. It was discovered in 1995 by Simon Plouffe and is named after the authors of the article in which it was published, David H. Bailey, Peter Borwein, and Plouffe. Before that, it had been published by Plouffe on his own site. The formula is:
The progression of both the nature of mathematics and individual mathematical problems into the future is a widely debated topic; many past predictions about modern mathematics have been misplaced or completely false, so there is reason to believe that many predictions today will follow a similar path. However, the subject still carries an important weight and has been written about by many notable mathematicians. Typically, they are motivated by a desire to set a research agenda to direct efforts to specific problems, or a wish to clarify, update and extrapolate the way that subdisciplines relate to the general discipline of mathematics and its possibilities. Examples of agendas pushing for progress in specific areas in the future, historical and recent, include Felix Klein's Erlangen program, Hilbert's problems, Langlands program, and the Millennium Prize Problems. In the Mathematics Subject Classification section 01Axx History of mathematics and mathematicians, subsection 01A67 is titled Future prospectives.
In mathematics, a Borwein integral is an integral whose unusual properties were first presented by mathematicians David Borwein and Jonathan Borwein in 2001. Borwein integrals involve products of , where the sinc function is given by for not equal to 0, and .
A mathematical constant is a number whose value is fixed by an unambiguous definition, often referred to by a special symbol, or by mathematicians' names to facilitate using it across multiple mathematical problems. Constants arise in many areas of mathematics, with constants such as e and π occurring in such diverse contexts as geometry, number theory, statistics, and calculus.
