Banker Offers $1M To Solve Beal Conjecture 216
oxide7 writes "A Texas banker with a knack for numbers has offered $1 million for anyone who can solve a complex math equation that has stumped mathematicians since the 1980s. The Beal Conjecture states that the only solutions to the equation A^x + B^y = C^z, when A, B and C are positive integers, and x, y and z are positive integers greater than two, are those in which A, B and C have a common factor. Like most number theories, it's "easy to say but extremely difficult to prove.""
Have solution. Alas, subject line = too small (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, but I promise you that the solution was very elegant.
Bert
Give a man a gun (Score:5, Funny)
Give a man a gun, he can rob a bank
Give a banker an algorithm, he can rob the world.
Too big to solve (Score:5, Funny)
Oh great, yet another bank that wants a bealout.
Re:Have solution. Alas, subject line = too small (Score:5, Funny)
I suspect you are correct, but a proof remains elusive.
Re:Fermat? (Score:5, Funny)
Huh. For a second there my brain thought: "FTL? Faster Than Light (travel)? WTF!"
Re:What's in it for him? (Score:5, Funny)
So, being quite cynical about such things, in what way would a proof of this conjecture allow him to make more money?
Philanthropy and advancing science are good, but my first thoughts is that if someone can prove this he stands to make massive amounts of money.
You know the old jokes about rich people paying bums on the street to fight for their own amusement? Well, extend that to mathematicians.
Re:Couldn't you just make up any old equation... (Score:4, Funny)
Beer analogy, as requested: suppose you want to be 100% certain that no one is pissing a little in your beer before you drink it. You can be 99.999% sure by ordering high-quality beer in an upscale establishment and watching the bartender fill your glass --- but you've still got that nagging fear that someone in the back room, or even the brewery, may have whizzed in the keg when no one was looking. So, instead of relying on empirical likelihoods, you go and brew your own beer, from start to finish under your watchful eye, to get that 100%-guaranteed-piss-free pint. And, ultimately, humankind's fundamental knowledge and craft of beer brewing is advanced through the initial efforts of home-brew enthusiasts.
Re:Fermat? (Score:5, Funny)
Huh. For a second there my brain thought: "FTL? Faster Than Light (travel)? WTF!"
WTF? World Taekwondo Federation?
Re:Couldn't you just make up any old equation... (Score:4, Funny)
Every analogy breaks down somewhere (or else it wouldn't be an analogy, but the thing analogized itself). If one wishes absolute mathematical certainty for their piss-free pint, then one must be satisfied with a mathematical pint. As thus: consider a Platonic ideal beer, symbolically represented by the word "beer." Now, imagine quaffing the beer. Theoretically, this should be satisfying and delicious. If you don't consider this exercise superior to drinking an actual beer, you may just not be cut out for pure mathematics --- consider becoming a physicist instead.
Re:Brute force? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Fermat? (Score:5, Funny)