Vsauce

The Simplest Thing We Can’t Prove #shorts

Goldbach’s Conjecture states that every even whole number greater than 2 is the sum of two prime numbers. So, 28 is 11 + 17… 62 is 43 + 19… and it goes up. WAY up.

We’ve calculated every value up to 4 x 10^18, so it’s got to be provable, right? WRONG. One guy tried it by hand; now we crunch the numbers with supercomputers and we’re still not there. Confirming the Goldbach Conjecture’s veracity has been just out of reach since Euler and Goldbach first communicated about it in 1742, and although we don’t have any information or analysis to disprove it, we can’t say with absolute certainty that Goldbach’s Conjecture holds for every even whole number through infinity.

#shorts

Products You May Like

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *