Indian Mathematician Takes Shot At Proving Riemann Hypothesis 160
First time accepted submitter jalfreize writes "Indian Mathematician Rohit Gupta (known by the moniker @fadesingh on twitter) has announced an online workshop which he intends to 'conclude by attacking an important problem in front of (the participants), in public view.' The problem is the Riemann Hypothesis, first proposed in 1859. Rohit outlines his approach based on quasicrystals first outlined by Freeman Dyson. His audacious plan, coupled with this recent news about quasicrystals, has kicked up a storm of interest in the Indian twitterverse."
Re:Oh boy (Score:2, Insightful)
As an American-born Asian Indian, I know the pain of real racism. But a lot of what people like you consider to be "racism" has absolutely nothing to do with actual racism, and in fact has nothing to do with race at all!
It's understandable why many people in Western nations have a bad opinion of Indians, especially when technology or science is involved. No, English-speaking Americans won't be happy at all when they call some tech support line, trying to get help with a critical problem, only to have some guy who speaks English horribly answer. It's worse when this fellow lies and claims that his name is "Steve", although it's clear from his heavy accent that that is not likely his name.
It also won't help the reputation of Indians when the aforementioned tech support calls don't actually resolve the problem, and are instead extremely tedious follow-the-script time wasting sessions. It's even worse for those of us who dealt with good, American-based tech support in the past. In the 1980s, I knew I could call a tech support hotline and get somebody who knew English and who knew the product, and I'd usually be off the phone with the problem resolved within 10 minutes. That has never happened since the major push to outsource call centers to India and other third-world countries.
For those people who have had to deal with off-shore outsourcing software developers in India, there'll be a whole new set of horrible experiences to recount. Whether it's the shitty quality of the software they produce, or whether it's the lies about the current progress, or whether it's just the overall ineptitude, it's almost never a good experience for the Americans.
Even the typical college student will likely have had to deal with an Indian professor or professor's assistant who speaks in a way that cannot be understood, or otherwise is unable to properly teach or assist with the course material.
So it should be clear why many Westerners don't hold Indians in high esteem. When the only interactions go extremely badly for the Westerners, all of the time, it's no wonder that they won't respect Indians, and won't want to deal with Indians. Making incorrect accusations of "racism" won't help the situation, either. Doing so totally ignores the root cause of the problem, which isn't race, but rather an endless stream of awful interactions.
Cheap publicity stunt (Score:5, Insightful)
I have great respect to mathematics. Itâ(TM)s one of the few disciplines left were bs doesnâ(TM)t fly (for long), unlike, for example, economics and political science.
This is a cheap publicity stunt, nothing more. Mathematics is not dancing with the stars or what not. This is a serious scientific problem a century and a half old. If you make a mistake in your âoeproofâ, the public wonâ(TM)t be able to notice. He hopes to be able to publicly claim success, even if his solution will be disproved later (with much less publicity). The proper way to do this is to publish your proof in a peer-reviewed journal and wait to see if other mathematicians find a flaw in your argument. His approach is cheap, unscientific publicity stunt.