Euler’s conjecture, a theory proposed by Leonhard Euler in 1769, hung in there for 200 years. Then L.J. Lander and T.R. Parkin came along in 1966, and debunked the conjecture in two swift sentences. Their article — which is now open access and can be downloaded here — appeared in the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. If you’re wondering what the conjecture and its refutation are all about, you might want to ask Cliff Pickover, the author of 45 books on math and science. He brought this curious document to the web a couple of years back…
If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newsletter, please find it here.
If you would like to support the mission of Open Culture, consider making a donation to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your contributions will help us continue providing the best free cultural and educational materials to learners everywhere. You can contribute through PayPal, Patreon, and Venmo (@openculture). Thanks!
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site in April, 2015.
Related Content:
When a Cat Co-Authored a Paper in a Leading Physics Journal (1975)
Read John Nash’s Super Short PhD Thesis with 26 Pages & 2 Citations: The Beauty of Inventing a Field
The World Record for the Shortest Math Article: 2 Words
Does Math Objectively Exist, or Is It a Human Creation? A New PBS Video Explores a Timeless Question
A small note, in the spirit of constructive criticism:
>Euler’s conjecture, a theory proposed by (…)
A conjecture is not a theory, it is a conjecture; leave it at that. It’s something that you guess is true but don’t know how to prove.
>and debunked the conjecture
“debunk” is harsh. You “debunk” a hoax, maybe. You *disprove* a conjecture, or, more causally, you “show it to be false”.
> If you’re wondering what the conjecture and its refutation are all about, you might want to ask
What the conjecture is, is written right there, on the last line of those “two swift sentences”. But ok, I suppose many of your readers may appreciate a bit of hand-holding – although it’s pretty readable, as long as you remember what an “nth power” is.
Anyway, I don’t mean to be harsh, hope you take this in the way I meant it.
I would like to show thanks to you just for bailing me out of this this particular trouble. As a result of checking through the net and meeting techniques that was not productive, I released my life was done.