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These Are the 10

Hardest Math
Problems That
Remain Unsolved
The smartest people in the world
can’t crack them. Maybe you’ll have
better luck.

//
// BY
BY DAVE
DAVE
LINKLETTER
LINKLETTER JUL
JUL 22,
22, 2022
2022

GETTY/CREATIVE COMMONS

For all of the recent strides we’ve made in

the math world—like a supercomputer
finally solving the Sum of Three Cubes
problem that puzzled mathematicians for
65 years—we’re forever crunching
calculations in pursuit of deeper numerical
knowledge. Some math problems have
been challenging us for centuries, and
while brain-busters like these hardest math
problems that follow may seem impossible,
someone is bound to solve ’em eventually.
Maybe.

For now, you can take a crack at the

hardest math problems known to man,
woman, and machine.

More from Popular Mechanics:

• How Many of These Tough Logic Puzzles Can

You Solve?
• A Self-Taught Math Genius Wrote This Riddle
While Serving Time in Prison. Can You Solve It?
• These Are the 10 Toughest Math Problems Ever
Solved

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1
The Collatz Conjecture

ifniseven
f(n)=
3n+1ifnisodd

DAVE LINKLETTER

In September 2019, news broke regarding

progress on this 82-year-old question,
thanks to prolific mathematician Terence
Tao. And while the story of Tao’s
breakthrough is promising, the problem
isn’t fully solved yet.

A refresher on the Collatz Conjecture: It’s

all about that function f(n), shown above,
which takes even numbers and cuts them
in half, while odd numbers get tripled and
then added to 1. Take any natural number,
apply f, then apply f again and again. You
eventually land on 1, for every number
we’ve ever checked. The Conjecture is that
this is true for all natural numbers
(positive integers from 1 through infinity).

Tao’s recent work is a near-solution to the

Collatz Conjecture in some subtle ways.
But he most likely can’t adapt his methods
to yield a complete solution to the
problem, as Tao subsequently explained.
So, we might be working on it for decades
longer.

The Conjecture lives in the math discipline

known as Dynamical Systems, or the study
of situations that change over time in semi-
predictable ways. It looks like a simple,
innocuous question, but that’s what makes
it special. Why is such a basic question so
hard to answer? It serves as a benchmark
for our understanding; once we solve it,
then we can proceed onto much more
complicated matters.

The study of dynamical systems could

become more robust than anyone today
could imagine. But we’ll need to solve the
Collatz Conjecture for the subject to
flourish.

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2
Goldbach’s Conjecture

CREATIVE COMMONS

One of the greatest unsolved mysteries in

math is also very easy to write. Goldbach’s
Conjecture is, “Every even number (greater
than two) is the sum of two primes.” You
check this in your head for small numbers:
18 is 13+5, and 42 is 23+19. Computers
have checked the Conjecture for numbers
up to some magnitude. But we need proof
for all natural numbers.

Goldbach’s Conjecture precipitated from

letters in 1742 between German
mathematician Christian Goldbach and
legendary Swiss mathematician Leonhard
Euler, considered one of the greatest in
math history. As Euler put it, “I regard [it]
as a completely certain theorem, although
I cannot prove it.”

Euler may have sensed what makes this

problem counterintuitively hard to solve.
When you look at larger numbers, they
have more ways of being written as sums
of primes, not less. Like how 3+5 is the
only way to break 8 into two primes, but
42 can broken into 5+37, 11+31, 13+29,
and 19+23. So it feels like Goldbach’s
Conjecture is an understatement for very
large numbers.

Still, a proof of the conjecture for all

numbers eludes mathematicians to this
day. It stands as one of the oldest open
questions in all of math.

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3
The Twin Prime Conjecture

WOLFRAM ALPHA

Together with Goldbach’s, the Twin Prime

Conjecture is the most famous in Number
Theory—or the study of natural numbers
and their properties, frequently involving
prime numbers. Since you've known these
numbers since grade school, stating the
conjectures is easy.

When two primes have a difference of 2,

they’re called twin primes. So 11 and 13
are twin primes, as are 599 and 601. Now,
it's a Day 1 Number Theory fact that there
are infinitely many prime numbers. So, are
there infinitely many twin primes? The
Twin Prime Conjecture says yes.

Let’s go a bit deeper. The first in a pair of

twin primes is, with one exception, always
1 less than a multiple of 6. And so the
second twin prime is always 1 more than a
multiple of 6. You can understand why, if
you’re ready to follow a bit of heady
Number Theory.

All primes after 2 are odd. Even numbers

are always 0, 2, or 4 more than a multiple
of 6, while odd numbers are always 1, 3,
or 5 more than a multiple of 6. Well, one
of those three possibilities for odd numbers
causes an issue. If a number is 3 more than
a multiple of 6, then it has a factor of 3.
Having a factor of 3 means a number isn’t
prime (with the sole exception of 3 itself).
And that's why every third odd number
can't be prime.

How’s your head after that paragraph?

Now imagine the headaches of everyone
who has tried to solve this problem in the
last 170 years.

The good news is that we’ve made some

promising progress in the last decade.
Mathematicians have managed to tackle
closer and closer versions of the Twin
Prime Conjecture. This was their idea:
Trouble proving there are infinitely many
primes with a difference of 2? How about
proving there are infinitely many primes
with a difference of 70,000,000? That was
cleverly proven in 2013 by Yitang Zhang at
the University of New Hampshire.

For the last six years, mathematicians have

been improving that number in Zhang’s
proof, from millions down to hundreds.
Taking it down all the way to 2 will be the
solution to the Twin Prime Conjecture. The
closest we’ve come—given some subtle
technical assumptions—is 6. Time will tell
if the last step from 6 to 2 is right around
the corner, or if that last part will challenge
mathematicians for decades longer.

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4
The Riemann Hypothesis

DAVE LINKLETTER

Today’s mathematicians would probably

agree that the Riemann Hypothesis is the
most significant open problem in all of
math. It’s one of the seven Millennium
Prize Problems, with $1 million reward for
its solution. It has implications deep into
various branches of math, but it’s also
simple enough that we can explain the
basic idea right here.

There is a function, called the Riemann

zeta function, written in the image above.

For each s, this function gives an infinite

sum, which takes some basic calculus to

For example, if s=2, then 𝜁(s) is the well-

approach for even the simplest values of s.

which strangely adds up to exactly 𝜋²/6.

known series 1 + 1/4 + 1/9 + 1/16 + …,

When s is a complex number—one that

number 𝑖—finding 𝜁(s) gets tricky.

looks like a+b𝑖, using the imaginary

So tricky, in fact, that it’s become the

ultimate math question. Specifically, the

𝜁(s)=0; the official statement is, “Every

Riemann Hypothesis is about when

nontrivial zero of the Riemann zeta

function has real part 1/2.” On the plane
of complex numbers, this means the
function has a certain behavior along a
special vertical line. The hypothesis is that
the behavior continues along that line
infinitely.

The Hypothesis and the zeta function come

from German mathematician Bernhard
Riemann, who described them in 1859.
Riemann developed them while studying
prime numbers and their distribution. Our
understanding of prime numbers has
flourished in the 160 years since, and
Riemann would never have imagined the
power of supercomputers. But lacking a
solution to the Riemann Hypothesis is a
major setback.

If the Riemann Hypothesis were solved

tomorrow, it would unlock an avalanche of
further progress. It would be huge news
throughout the subjects of Number Theory
and Analysis. Until then, the Riemann
Hypothesis remains one of the largest
dams to the river of math research.

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5
The Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer
Conjecture

CREATIVE COMMONS

The Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture

is another of the six unsolved Millennium
Prize Problems, and it’s the only other one
we can remotely describe in plain English.
This Conjecture involves the math topic
known as Elliptic Curves.

When we recently wrote about the

toughest math problems that have been
solved, we mentioned one of the greatest
achievements in 20th-century math: the
solution to Fermat’s Last Theorem. Sir
Andrew Wiles solved it using Elliptic
Curves. So, you could call this a very
powerful new branch of math.

In a nutshell, an elliptic curve is a special

kind of function. They take the
unthreatening-looking form y²=x³+ax+b.
It turns out functions like this have certain
properties that cast insight into math
topics like Algebra and Number Theory.

British mathematicians Bryan Birch and

Peter Swinnerton-Dyer developed their
conjecture in the 1960s. Its exact
statement is very technical, and has
evolved over the years. One of the main
stewards of this evolution has been none
other than Wiles. To see its current status
and complexity, check out this famous
update by Wells in 2006.

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6
The Kissing Number Problem

JJ HARRISON/CREATIVE COMMONS

A broad category of problems in math are

called the Sphere Packing Problems. They
range from pure math to practical