Proof of the Collatz Conjecture

[Daedalus]

Eureka!!! I just proved the Collatz conjecture to be true!!! I' m in total disbelief, and I'm sure you all are as well, but I can finally prove it! However, since I'm a software engineer and not a mathematician, I'm sure any paper that I write would be inadequate at best. If my proof is verified to be correct, then such a paper needs to be written and structured correctly.

 

What should I do? This is a tremendous opportunity to involve our community here at SFN to help me produce a paper and get it submitted to a respectable journal but, since the forum is not a journal and is open to the public, I risk someone else claiming my ideas as their own if share them here. Since it would take me a long time to learn everything I need to know to tackle such a paper, perhaps it would be better for me to hire a mathematician to write the paper on my behalf. What do you all think I should do? I'm almost done writing my proof in Mathematica and I really want to post it.

Edited July 2, 2016 by Daedalus

[Yvtq8k3n]

Eureka!!! I just proved the Collatz conjecture to be true!!! I' m in total disbelief, and I' m sure you all are as well, but I can finally prove it! However, since I'm a software engineer and not a mathematician, I'm sure any paper that I write would be inadequate at best. If my proof is verified to be correct, then such a paper needs to be written and structured correctly.

 

What should I do? This is a tremendous opportunity to involve our community here at SFN to help me produce a paper and get it submitted to a respectable journal but, since the forum is not a journal and is open to the public, I risk someone else claiming my ideas as their own if share them here. Since it would take me a long time to learn everything I need to know to tackle such a paper, perhaps it would be better for me to hire a mathematician to write the paper on my behalf. What do you all think I should do? I'm almost done writing my proof in Mathematica and I really want to post it.

If that is what you did is rigth then Good job, i asked to my Maths teacher in my university, the best place where u should send that, I have no ideia what that is but u should send it to an maths magazine in my opinion. Still i will wait for her replay.

[Daedalus]

If that is what you did is rigth then Good job, i asked to my Maths teacher in my university, the best place where u should send that, I have no ideia what that is but u should send it to an maths magazine in my opinion. Still i will wait for her replay.

 

Those that know me, know I wouldn't bolster such a claim without having the equations to back it up.

 

Discoveries by Daedalus

 

Daedalus' Sixth Challenge

Daedalus' Fifth Challenge

Daedalus' Thirteenth Challenge

Daedalus' Twelfth Challenge

Daedalus' Eleventh Challenge

Daedalus' Tenth Challenge

Daedalus' Ninth Challenge

Daedalus' Eighth Challenge

Daedalus' Seventh Challenge

Daedalus' Sixth Challenge

Daedalus' Fifth Challenge

Daedalus' Fourth Challenge

Daedalus' Third Challenge

Daedalus' Second Challenge

Daedalus' First Challenge

 

I have no ideia what that is but u should send it to an maths magazine in my opinion.

 

Submitting to a magazine isn't the way to go. Such a paper needs to be scrutinized by a proper journal.

Edited July 2, 2016 by Daedalus

[wtf]

You can submit to Arxiv I think ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArXiv

 

That would establish your priority.

 

There's also something called Vixra (Arxiv backwards) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViXra. The sense I get is that there's a lot more "fringe" stuff on Vixra. Either way those are two places to upload papers.

 

As far as whether you actually solved the problem, without seeing the paper I'd just want to know if you're familiar with all the modern literature on the problem, if you've found an original way to surmount some known obstacle, or if you have perhaps figured out how to extend or combine known techniques, all those things would add to the probability that you actually have a proof.

 

Your odds go down if this is just something you cooked up yourself. Someone's probably thought of it already and if they couldn't get it to work, that would be a problem.

 

I'm not an attorney but as far as I know you could publish your proof right here. If it turns out to be correct and your proof becomes famous, your IP address assigned to you by your Internet service provider, combined with the Scienceforum server logs, would establish your authorship under your real name.

Edited July 3, 2016 by wtf

[Daedalus]

You can submit to Arxiv I think ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArXiv

 

That would establish your priority.

 

There's also something called Vixra (Arxiv backwards) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViXra. The sense I get is that there's a lot more "fringe" stuff on Vixra. Either way those are two places to upload papers.

Although I can walk anyone through the proof with ease, I've never written a paper for publishing in a journal of mathematics. Sure, I could submit a written paper to Arxiv and establish priority, but it will most likely not be in a format that is par with mathematical papers.

 

As far as whether you actually solved the problem, without seeing the paper I'd just want to know if you're familiar with all the modern literature on the problem, if you've found an original way to surmount some known obstacle, or if you have perhaps figured out how to extend or combine known techniques, all those things would add to the probability that you actually have a proof.

The proof is actually quite beautiful. It is based on well established concepts. So, I'm sure it's correct.

 

I'm not an attorney but as far as I know you could publish your proof right here. If it turns out to be correct and your proof becomes famous, your IP address assigned to you by your Internet service provider, combined with the Scienceforum server logs, would establish your authorship under your real name.

If this can be verified, I'll post the proof along with the Mathematica file that I used to crunch the numbers.

Edited July 3, 2016 by Daedalus

[wtf]

Can you say how you are able to prove something for all n by a process of number crunching? For example you can't prove the there are infinitely many primes using a spreadsheet. You have to come up with a clever idea that handles all the cases at once.

 

Anyway really can't help you on the intellectual property issue, if priority is really your concern you should write it up the best you can and post it on Arxiv. But if you haven't got a complete mathematical argument, what exactly have you got that makes you think you DO have a complete mathematical argument? Just playing Devil's advocate.

[ajb]

There's also something called Vixra (Arxiv backwards) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViXra. The sense I get is that there's a lot more "fringe" stuff on Vixra. Either way those are two places to upload papers.

Don't put anything on viXra. It will simply make you look like a crank no matter if the work is good or not.

 

 

Anyway, just write it up and send it to several experts at the same time. This means you will have a nice email record of being original. Hopefullly one of more of these experts will give you some feedback.

 

As for format... use LaTex and loosley copy a paper that you like. Make sure your introduction shows that you know round the subject, cite plenty of related papers, make it clear what is already known and what you did (think about including a preliminaries section) and try to explain a little of the philosophy of the methods you use rather than just give lines of mathematics. With the last point, try to balance readbility with details.

 

Good luck