161-year-old Maths problem solved by Hyderabad based physicist

Ayush Vatsa

June 28, 2021

The 161 one-year-old mathematical problem which lacked its proof just got confirmation. After been declared as the Millennium Prize problem two decades ago, a Hyderabad-based mathematical physicist, Kumar Eswaran, claimed to have found the proof for the Riemann Hypothesis. Riemann hypothesis, in number theory, hypothesis by German mathematician Bernhard Riemann concerning the location of solutions to the Riemann zeta function, which is connected to the prime number theorem and has important implications for the distribution of prime numbers. It is used to count the number of prime numbers in a range. It also gives a method of generating large random numbers. The problem has been reputed as being one of the unsolved questions of mathematics. This quest even got a reward announcement of 1 million dollars. Kumar Eswaran who is a mathematical physicist at Sreenidhi Institute of Science and Technology, Hyderabad, published his research “The final and exhaustive proof of the Riemann Hypothesis from first principles” on the internet over 5 years ago. The editors of the international journals wanted to put the paper through detailed peer review. In 2020, an expert committee was constituted to look into the proof developed by Eswaran. More than 1,200 mathematicians were invited by the committee to take part in an open review in which – the referees would willingly have their names and institutional affiliations revealed openly. This is necessary so that nothing is done anonymously. Also, nothing should remain hidden from the other experts to see. Soon after, seven international scholars responded to the call. After scrutinizing the comments of the seven reviewers and the responses of the author, the committee concluded that Eswaran's proof of the RH is correct. Professor M Seetharaman said, “The author's analysis is exhaustive, unambiguous and every step in the analysis is explained in great detail and established. The conclusions of the author and his result must therefore be considered proven.”

Abridged fromTimes Now