Two (probably) equal real numbers which are not proved to be equal?












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Can someone give me a nice example of two computable real numbers which are believed but not proved to be equal?



I never really understood the assertion that "the reals do not have decidable equality" until I saw concrete examples such as this gem. It's clear that both sides are well-defined real numbers, however it's not at all clear how one might go about proving their equality. However, perhaps a little disappointingly, on page 10 of this article by Bailey, Borwein, Broadhust and Zudilin, the equality is proved (and that article appeared on ArXiv before Stanley's post).



It's very easy to give "silly" examples of real numbers which are probably equal but not provably equal, e.g. the real number which is 0 if the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture is true and 1 if not, is probably equal to zero, but we can't prove it. So for the pedants, can anyone give me an example of two computable real numbers whose equality is believed, but not known? More informally, I am looking for an example like the one Richard Stanley mentions in the link above where computer scientists can compute both sides to a gazillion decimal places but mathematicians can't prove equality rigorously? Stanley calls such things rare. Several potential examples are mentioned on p13 of the BBBZ paper I cited above, however that paper was written ten years ago and things seem to move fast in this area. Are any of these still open? It looks to me like the authors are developing techniques which might solve them.
For example equation (10): if



$$Cl_2(theta):=-int_0^thetalog|2sin(sigma)|dsigma$$



and $theta_2:=2tan^{-1}(sqrt{2})$ then is



$$27Cl_2(theta_2)−9Cl_2(2theta_2) + Cl_2(3theta_2)= 8Cl_2(pi/4)+ 8Cl_2(3pi/4)$$
still an open problem?










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  • 7




    $begingroup$
    Example 1, example 2, example 3. All identities involve computable numbers and are equivalent to RH.
    $endgroup$
    – Wojowu
    May 7 at 15:16








  • 4




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    As much as I like the question, I feel like it would fit better on Math.SE.
    $endgroup$
    – Wojowu
    May 7 at 15:20






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    As one of the pedants mentioned in the last paragraph of the question, I must point out that "0 if the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture is true and 1 if not" is a computable real number. Admittedly, we don't know which of two obvious algorithms computes it, but we (using classical logic) do know that there exists an algorithm computing it, and that's what "computable" means.
    $endgroup$
    – Andreas Blass
    May 7 at 17:17






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    You can take an elliptic curve over ${mathbb Q}$ with rank 4. Then the second derivative of its L-function at s=1 is computable (if you start from a twist of $y^2=x^3-x$, you can even write an explicit series), should be 0, but no one knows how to prove it.
    $endgroup$
    – Zidane
    May 7 at 21:00






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    The article en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_mathematics has some nice true, false, and unsolved examples. $ sum_{k=1}^infty frac{1}{k^2}left(1+frac{1}{2}+frac{1}{3}+cdots+frac{1}{k}right)^2 = frac{17pi^4}{360}$ was verified to 100+ decimal digits (see reference linked from the wiki page) but might still be unproven.
    $endgroup$
    – none
    May 8 at 6:47


















42












$begingroup$


Can someone give me a nice example of two computable real numbers which are believed but not proved to be equal?



I never really understood the assertion that "the reals do not have decidable equality" until I saw concrete examples such as this gem. It's clear that both sides are well-defined real numbers, however it's not at all clear how one might go about proving their equality. However, perhaps a little disappointingly, on page 10 of this article by Bailey, Borwein, Broadhust and Zudilin, the equality is proved (and that article appeared on ArXiv before Stanley's post).



It's very easy to give "silly" examples of real numbers which are probably equal but not provably equal, e.g. the real number which is 0 if the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture is true and 1 if not, is probably equal to zero, but we can't prove it. So for the pedants, can anyone give me an example of two computable real numbers whose equality is believed, but not known? More informally, I am looking for an example like the one Richard Stanley mentions in the link above where computer scientists can compute both sides to a gazillion decimal places but mathematicians can't prove equality rigorously? Stanley calls such things rare. Several potential examples are mentioned on p13 of the BBBZ paper I cited above, however that paper was written ten years ago and things seem to move fast in this area. Are any of these still open? It looks to me like the authors are developing techniques which might solve them.
For example equation (10): if



$$Cl_2(theta):=-int_0^thetalog|2sin(sigma)|dsigma$$



and $theta_2:=2tan^{-1}(sqrt{2})$ then is



$$27Cl_2(theta_2)−9Cl_2(2theta_2) + Cl_2(3theta_2)= 8Cl_2(pi/4)+ 8Cl_2(3pi/4)$$
still an open problem?










share|cite|improve this question











$endgroup$








  • 7




    $begingroup$
    Example 1, example 2, example 3. All identities involve computable numbers and are equivalent to RH.
    $endgroup$
    – Wojowu
    May 7 at 15:16








  • 4




    $begingroup$
    As much as I like the question, I feel like it would fit better on Math.SE.
    $endgroup$
    – Wojowu
    May 7 at 15:20






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    As one of the pedants mentioned in the last paragraph of the question, I must point out that "0 if the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture is true and 1 if not" is a computable real number. Admittedly, we don't know which of two obvious algorithms computes it, but we (using classical logic) do know that there exists an algorithm computing it, and that's what "computable" means.
    $endgroup$
    – Andreas Blass
    May 7 at 17:17






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    You can take an elliptic curve over ${mathbb Q}$ with rank 4. Then the second derivative of its L-function at s=1 is computable (if you start from a twist of $y^2=x^3-x$, you can even write an explicit series), should be 0, but no one knows how to prove it.
    $endgroup$
    – Zidane
    May 7 at 21:00






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    The article en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_mathematics has some nice true, false, and unsolved examples. $ sum_{k=1}^infty frac{1}{k^2}left(1+frac{1}{2}+frac{1}{3}+cdots+frac{1}{k}right)^2 = frac{17pi^4}{360}$ was verified to 100+ decimal digits (see reference linked from the wiki page) but might still be unproven.
    $endgroup$
    – none
    May 8 at 6:47
















42












42








42


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$begingroup$


Can someone give me a nice example of two computable real numbers which are believed but not proved to be equal?



I never really understood the assertion that "the reals do not have decidable equality" until I saw concrete examples such as this gem. It's clear that both sides are well-defined real numbers, however it's not at all clear how one might go about proving their equality. However, perhaps a little disappointingly, on page 10 of this article by Bailey, Borwein, Broadhust and Zudilin, the equality is proved (and that article appeared on ArXiv before Stanley's post).



It's very easy to give "silly" examples of real numbers which are probably equal but not provably equal, e.g. the real number which is 0 if the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture is true and 1 if not, is probably equal to zero, but we can't prove it. So for the pedants, can anyone give me an example of two computable real numbers whose equality is believed, but not known? More informally, I am looking for an example like the one Richard Stanley mentions in the link above where computer scientists can compute both sides to a gazillion decimal places but mathematicians can't prove equality rigorously? Stanley calls such things rare. Several potential examples are mentioned on p13 of the BBBZ paper I cited above, however that paper was written ten years ago and things seem to move fast in this area. Are any of these still open? It looks to me like the authors are developing techniques which might solve them.
For example equation (10): if



$$Cl_2(theta):=-int_0^thetalog|2sin(sigma)|dsigma$$



and $theta_2:=2tan^{-1}(sqrt{2})$ then is



$$27Cl_2(theta_2)−9Cl_2(2theta_2) + Cl_2(3theta_2)= 8Cl_2(pi/4)+ 8Cl_2(3pi/4)$$
still an open problem?










share|cite|improve this question











$endgroup$




Can someone give me a nice example of two computable real numbers which are believed but not proved to be equal?



I never really understood the assertion that "the reals do not have decidable equality" until I saw concrete examples such as this gem. It's clear that both sides are well-defined real numbers, however it's not at all clear how one might go about proving their equality. However, perhaps a little disappointingly, on page 10 of this article by Bailey, Borwein, Broadhust and Zudilin, the equality is proved (and that article appeared on ArXiv before Stanley's post).



It's very easy to give "silly" examples of real numbers which are probably equal but not provably equal, e.g. the real number which is 0 if the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture is true and 1 if not, is probably equal to zero, but we can't prove it. So for the pedants, can anyone give me an example of two computable real numbers whose equality is believed, but not known? More informally, I am looking for an example like the one Richard Stanley mentions in the link above where computer scientists can compute both sides to a gazillion decimal places but mathematicians can't prove equality rigorously? Stanley calls such things rare. Several potential examples are mentioned on p13 of the BBBZ paper I cited above, however that paper was written ten years ago and things seem to move fast in this area. Are any of these still open? It looks to me like the authors are developing techniques which might solve them.
For example equation (10): if



$$Cl_2(theta):=-int_0^thetalog|2sin(sigma)|dsigma$$



and $theta_2:=2tan^{-1}(sqrt{2})$ then is



$$27Cl_2(theta_2)−9Cl_2(2theta_2) + Cl_2(3theta_2)= 8Cl_2(pi/4)+ 8Cl_2(3pi/4)$$
still an open problem?







real-analysis decidability






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share|cite|improve this question













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edited May 7 at 15:15


























community wiki





Kevin Buzzard









  • 7




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    Example 1, example 2, example 3. All identities involve computable numbers and are equivalent to RH.
    $endgroup$
    – Wojowu
    May 7 at 15:16








  • 4




    $begingroup$
    As much as I like the question, I feel like it would fit better on Math.SE.
    $endgroup$
    – Wojowu
    May 7 at 15:20






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    As one of the pedants mentioned in the last paragraph of the question, I must point out that "0 if the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture is true and 1 if not" is a computable real number. Admittedly, we don't know which of two obvious algorithms computes it, but we (using classical logic) do know that there exists an algorithm computing it, and that's what "computable" means.
    $endgroup$
    – Andreas Blass
    May 7 at 17:17






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    You can take an elliptic curve over ${mathbb Q}$ with rank 4. Then the second derivative of its L-function at s=1 is computable (if you start from a twist of $y^2=x^3-x$, you can even write an explicit series), should be 0, but no one knows how to prove it.
    $endgroup$
    – Zidane
    May 7 at 21:00






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    The article en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_mathematics has some nice true, false, and unsolved examples. $ sum_{k=1}^infty frac{1}{k^2}left(1+frac{1}{2}+frac{1}{3}+cdots+frac{1}{k}right)^2 = frac{17pi^4}{360}$ was verified to 100+ decimal digits (see reference linked from the wiki page) but might still be unproven.
    $endgroup$
    – none
    May 8 at 6:47
















  • 7




    $begingroup$
    Example 1, example 2, example 3. All identities involve computable numbers and are equivalent to RH.
    $endgroup$
    – Wojowu
    May 7 at 15:16








  • 4




    $begingroup$
    As much as I like the question, I feel like it would fit better on Math.SE.
    $endgroup$
    – Wojowu
    May 7 at 15:20






  • 7




    $begingroup$
    As one of the pedants mentioned in the last paragraph of the question, I must point out that "0 if the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture is true and 1 if not" is a computable real number. Admittedly, we don't know which of two obvious algorithms computes it, but we (using classical logic) do know that there exists an algorithm computing it, and that's what "computable" means.
    $endgroup$
    – Andreas Blass
    May 7 at 17:17






  • 6




    $begingroup$
    You can take an elliptic curve over ${mathbb Q}$ with rank 4. Then the second derivative of its L-function at s=1 is computable (if you start from a twist of $y^2=x^3-x$, you can even write an explicit series), should be 0, but no one knows how to prove it.
    $endgroup$
    – Zidane
    May 7 at 21:00






  • 11




    $begingroup$
    The article en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_mathematics has some nice true, false, and unsolved examples. $ sum_{k=1}^infty frac{1}{k^2}left(1+frac{1}{2}+frac{1}{3}+cdots+frac{1}{k}right)^2 = frac{17pi^4}{360}$ was verified to 100+ decimal digits (see reference linked from the wiki page) but might still be unproven.
    $endgroup$
    – none
    May 8 at 6:47










7




7




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Example 1, example 2, example 3. All identities involve computable numbers and are equivalent to RH.
$endgroup$
– Wojowu
May 7 at 15:16






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Example 1, example 2, example 3. All identities involve computable numbers and are equivalent to RH.
$endgroup$
– Wojowu
May 7 at 15:16






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4




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As much as I like the question, I feel like it would fit better on Math.SE.
$endgroup$
– Wojowu
May 7 at 15:20




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As much as I like the question, I feel like it would fit better on Math.SE.
$endgroup$
– Wojowu
May 7 at 15:20




7




7




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As one of the pedants mentioned in the last paragraph of the question, I must point out that "0 if the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture is true and 1 if not" is a computable real number. Admittedly, we don't know which of two obvious algorithms computes it, but we (using classical logic) do know that there exists an algorithm computing it, and that's what "computable" means.
$endgroup$
– Andreas Blass
May 7 at 17:17




$begingroup$
As one of the pedants mentioned in the last paragraph of the question, I must point out that "0 if the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture is true and 1 if not" is a computable real number. Admittedly, we don't know which of two obvious algorithms computes it, but we (using classical logic) do know that there exists an algorithm computing it, and that's what "computable" means.
$endgroup$
– Andreas Blass
May 7 at 17:17




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6




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You can take an elliptic curve over ${mathbb Q}$ with rank 4. Then the second derivative of its L-function at s=1 is computable (if you start from a twist of $y^2=x^3-x$, you can even write an explicit series), should be 0, but no one knows how to prove it.
$endgroup$
– Zidane
May 7 at 21:00




$begingroup$
You can take an elliptic curve over ${mathbb Q}$ with rank 4. Then the second derivative of its L-function at s=1 is computable (if you start from a twist of $y^2=x^3-x$, you can even write an explicit series), should be 0, but no one knows how to prove it.
$endgroup$
– Zidane
May 7 at 21:00




11




11




$begingroup$
The article en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_mathematics has some nice true, false, and unsolved examples. $ sum_{k=1}^infty frac{1}{k^2}left(1+frac{1}{2}+frac{1}{3}+cdots+frac{1}{k}right)^2 = frac{17pi^4}{360}$ was verified to 100+ decimal digits (see reference linked from the wiki page) but might still be unproven.
$endgroup$
– none
May 8 at 6:47






$begingroup$
The article en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_mathematics has some nice true, false, and unsolved examples. $ sum_{k=1}^infty frac{1}{k^2}left(1+frac{1}{2}+frac{1}{3}+cdots+frac{1}{k}right)^2 = frac{17pi^4}{360}$ was verified to 100+ decimal digits (see reference linked from the wiki page) but might still be unproven.
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– none
May 8 at 6:47












7 Answers
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As mentioned in another MO question,
Gourevitch's conjecture is a nice example:
$$sum_{n=0}^infty frac{1+14n+76n^2+168n^3}{2^{20n}}binom{2n}{n}^7 = frac{32}{pi^3}.$$






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    This is verified numerically with Mathematica, although I can’t coax it to give me the exact answer ... I think this should be possible, let’s see ...
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    – EGME
    May 12 at 19:17










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    While I let the computer run and trying something, I can add that you can compute equality to any number of digits you want. M does produce an exact solution for the summation, but it doesn’t “know” (at least not yet) that it is identical to the RHS of the above. Let’s see what happens if I let this run for a while.
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    – EGME
    May 12 at 19:45












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    Oh this one would be perfect! Is it still open?
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    – Kevin Buzzard
    May 12 at 20:10










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    @KevinBuzzard : Jon Borwein told me about this ten years ago and it was open then. I believe it's still open; you could try emailing Jesus Guillera to check. You can find Guillera's email address on the arXiv, e.g., arxiv.org/abs/1807.07394
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    – Timothy Chow
    May 12 at 20:22










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    @KevinBuzzard J. Guillera confims that this is an open problem today (13 may 2019). I haven’t discounted the possibility of doing it with Mathematica just yet.
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    – EGME
    May 13 at 16:41



















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Thomson’s problem for $n = 7$ provides a nice example:



$$min_{x_1, ldots, x_7 in mathbb{S}^2} sum_{i=1}^7 sum_{j = i + 1}^7 frac{1}{|x_i - x_j|} = frac{1}{2} + 10 frac{1}{sqrt{2}} + 5sqrt{frac{2}{5 + sqrt{5}}} + 5sqrt{frac{1 + sqrt{5}}{2sqrt{5}}}$$



Now let me explain. Thomson's problem is to find the minimal energy configuration for $n$ electrons on a unit sphere, i.e. the left-hand-side of the equation. The answer is only rigorously known for $n leq 6$ and $n = 12$. For $n = 7$ the solution is only conjectured.



Now, the left-hand side of the equation above is computable since it is the minimum of a computable function over the sphere. (Moreover, it is fairly efficient to compute in practice, hence the filled-in table of minimal energies in the Wikipedia article.)



The right hand side is the energy of the conjectured optimal configuration for the $n=7$ case. (See here for the specific distances between points, which I used in the above equation.)



Many of the other values of $n$ have conjectured solutions and therefore give rise to similar equations.





One thing which I find crazy about this example (and which might ruin it for you), is that while this equation has never been rigorously proved, it’s truth/falsity is decidable by the decidability of real-closed fields (see my answer to a similar problem here). Hence a clever programmer-mathematician may find a computer-assisted rigorous proof. Indeed, this is exactly what happened for the $n=5$ case. (Schwartz used custom code. It would be nice to have someone redo this computation in a formal theorem prover like HOL Light, Coq, or Lean.)






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    After breaking the symmetry (by fixing one electron and the direction to another that is not antipodal), the set of critical points is the intersection of some algebraic surfaces and is almost certainly provably finite using Groebner basis methods, although the computations may be too difficult to be practical.
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    – Robert Israel
    May 8 at 3:11






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    An open conjecture in arithmetic geometry is whether any group scheme of order n is killed by n. This is true for n=1 and n prime (the latter a theorem of Deligne) but the n=4 case is still open. The n=4 case is simply the question "here is a completely explicit polynomial ring over the integers in about 20 variables -- is this explicit element in this explicit ideal?". Groebner basis methods are apparently not up to this yet.
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    – Kevin Buzzard
    May 8 at 8:31












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    Just to be clear -- the n on the left hand side of the equation in this answer is 7, right?
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    – Kevin Buzzard
    May 8 at 8:31










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    @KevinBuzzard Yes, $n=7$. I’ve made it explicit now.
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    – Jason Rute
    May 8 at 10:58










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    The "min" annoys me a bit in this example, for some reason I can't quite explain.
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    – Kevin Buzzard
    May 11 at 15:34



















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The conjectures on special values of $L$-functions provide a lot of examples. For example, David Boyd conjectured in his celebrated paper that the Mahler measure of the Laurent polynomial $P_k(x,y)=x+frac{1}{x}+y+frac{1}{y}+k$, where $k$ is an integer $neq 0, pm 4$, is proportional to $L'(E_k,0)$, where $E_k$ is the elliptic curve defined by the equation $P_k(x,y)=0$. It is not difficult to check these identities numerically to thousands of decimal places, but so far they have been proved only in a finite (and small) number of cases. (Technically you asked about equalities, here they involve some rational factor, which is however simple enough to guess in each particular case, although its value in general is mysterious, e.g. may be linked to the Bloch-Kato conjectures).



The equality mentioned in the OP (page 10 of Bailey-Borwein-Broadhurst-Zudilin) is essentially Borel's theorem in disguise for the $K$-group $K_3(mathbb{Q}(sqrt{-7}))$. Equation (10) of the same article is an instance of the following question: we have two elements in some $K$-group which has (or should have) rank 1, so they should be proportional hence their regulators should also be proportional. In the present case, equation (10) should follow from the 5-term functional equation of the dilogarithm evaluated at particular algebraic arguments, which is however not an easy task (there is an obvious but inefficient algorithm since the set of algebraic numbers is countable).






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    The moving sofa constant is conjectured to be 2.2195..., which is computable as the implicit solution of a set of equations (see Eqs. 1-4 in Romik 2018). On the other hand, while not immediately obvious, the fact that the moving sofa constant is computable is reasonably intuitive, and in fact, Dan Romik and I proved that it is.






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      Consider $x = sum_{n=0}^infty a_n 2^{-n}$ where $a_n = 1$ if $n$ is an odd perfect number, $0$ if not. It is suspected that $x = 0$, but not known. By checking the first $n$ natural numbers, we can approximate $x$ with an error at most $2^{-n}$.



      Along similar lines: by the solution to Hilbert's 10th problem a polynomial $P(a, x_1,ldots,x_n)$ with integer coefficients is known explicitly, such that the set of natural numbers $a$ for which $P(a,x_1,ldots,x_n)=0$ has a solution in natural numbers is not computable. Of course if such a solution exists, we can compute that it exists, but there is no algorithm to decide whether it exists.
      Let
      $$X(a) = sum_{(x_1,x_2,ldots,x_n) in mathbb N^n} chi_0(P(a,x_1,ldots,x_n)); 2^{-x_1 - ldots - x_n}$$
      where $chi_0(x) = 1$ if $x=0$, $0$ otherwise. The numbers $X(a)$ are all computable in the sense that
      arbitrarily good approximations are available, but there is no algorithm to decide whether $X(a)=0$. For any consistent theory $T$, there are some $a$ such that $X(a)=0$ but there is no proof in $T$ that $X(a)=0$.






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        I am irritated that (a) I cannot understand equation (10) in BBBZ and (b) all the other answers have been of the form "let's encode a well-known conjecture into a possibly slightly artificial real number". The original now-proved equality had none of these deficits.
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        – Kevin Buzzard
        May 7 at 19:21





















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      One of my favourite answers to this question is due to @Zidane, who wrote it as a comment to the question.



      Let $E$ be an elliptic curve of algebraic rank 4, for example the curve



      $$y^2 + xy = x^3 − x^2 − 79x + 289$$



      (see for example equation 1.4.1 of William Stein's book). The current state of the art (as far as I know) is that BSD says that this curve should have analytic rank 4, however known techniques cannot rule out analytic rank 2. Hence $L''(E,1)$ is conjectured, but not known, to be zero. The curve is modular, and the $L$-function of the modular form can be analytically continued to $s=1$ no problem, and its second derivative computed to many decimal places. My memory is that Stein did in fact do this, and observed that, unsurprisingly, it looked like it was zero. I guess it would actually be a big breakthrough if this number were proved to be zero; we don't as far as I know have techniques which access second derivatives of $L$-functions of elliptic curves yet.






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        For a very long time, people believed but could not prove that the densest possible sphere packing had density $piover 3sqrt 2$.



        This was Kepler's conjecture, finally proved by Hales in 1998, or alternatively (since the referees reported that they were 99% sure that the 1998 proof was correct but they couldn't be completely sure), by Hales and collaborators through machine formalization completed in 2015.






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          It's kind of annoying that this is an example of the form "These numbers were conjectured to be equal...oh but now it's a theorem". This answer hence suffers from the same problem which Stanley's post does. Your 17 pi^4/360 comment has none of these problems -- please post that as an answer too!
          $endgroup$
          – Kevin Buzzard
          May 8 at 8:37








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          @Wojowu while it's definitely not clear that the optimal sphere packing density is computable, it's woth pointing out that the optimal lattice sphere packing is computable (Voronoi's algorithm), unproved for $nge 9$ ($nneq 24$), and unlikely to be greater than known lower bounds for $9le nle 23$.
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          – Yoav Kallus
          May 8 at 13:18






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          As for whether the optimal sphere packing number is computable (before Hale’s proof), there has been a lot of confusion about this. I’ve heard highly qualified logicians say that Kepler’s conjecture is decidable from basically the decidability of RCF. Then similar ideas can be used to compute the optimal ratio. This appears not to be the case: mathoverflow.net/questions/317692/… (However the optimal packing in a cube of fixed size is computable. The issue is that the limit as the cube grows is not obviously computable.)
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          – Jason Rute
          May 8 at 13:50






        • 1




          $begingroup$
          @JasonRute that is really interesting about the limit as the cube grows: it sounds computable but it might not be, if it converges slowly enough that the cube has to grow by an uncomputable amount for each extra decimal place. I wonder if there are interesting mathematical constants that can be described as straightforward infinite series but are uncomputable for that reason. I don't count things like Chaitin's constant.
          $endgroup$
          – none
          May 9 at 9:15








        • 4




          $begingroup$
          I think optimal density in cube should approximate optimal density in Euclidean space to constant/(cube side): from above, tile the cube to get an infinite packing; from below, pick cubic region of the infinite packing with highest density and remove the balls that stick out. So, the optimal packing should be computable, but Henry Cohn's answer linked above is about decidability of eaulity to a certain value, which is a different issue.
          $endgroup$
          – Yoav Kallus
          May 10 at 1:52












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        7 Answers
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        7 Answers
        7






        active

        oldest

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        active

        oldest

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        active

        oldest

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        10












        $begingroup$

        As mentioned in another MO question,
        Gourevitch's conjecture is a nice example:
        $$sum_{n=0}^infty frac{1+14n+76n^2+168n^3}{2^{20n}}binom{2n}{n}^7 = frac{32}{pi^3}.$$






        share|cite|improve this answer











        $endgroup$













        • $begingroup$
          This is verified numerically with Mathematica, although I can’t coax it to give me the exact answer ... I think this should be possible, let’s see ...
          $endgroup$
          – EGME
          May 12 at 19:17










        • $begingroup$
          While I let the computer run and trying something, I can add that you can compute equality to any number of digits you want. M does produce an exact solution for the summation, but it doesn’t “know” (at least not yet) that it is identical to the RHS of the above. Let’s see what happens if I let this run for a while.
          $endgroup$
          – EGME
          May 12 at 19:45












        • $begingroup$
          Oh this one would be perfect! Is it still open?
          $endgroup$
          – Kevin Buzzard
          May 12 at 20:10










        • $begingroup$
          @KevinBuzzard : Jon Borwein told me about this ten years ago and it was open then. I believe it's still open; you could try emailing Jesus Guillera to check. You can find Guillera's email address on the arXiv, e.g., arxiv.org/abs/1807.07394
          $endgroup$
          – Timothy Chow
          May 12 at 20:22










        • $begingroup$
          @KevinBuzzard J. Guillera confims that this is an open problem today (13 may 2019). I haven’t discounted the possibility of doing it with Mathematica just yet.
          $endgroup$
          – EGME
          May 13 at 16:41
















        10












        $begingroup$

        As mentioned in another MO question,
        Gourevitch's conjecture is a nice example:
        $$sum_{n=0}^infty frac{1+14n+76n^2+168n^3}{2^{20n}}binom{2n}{n}^7 = frac{32}{pi^3}.$$






        share|cite|improve this answer











        $endgroup$













        • $begingroup$
          This is verified numerically with Mathematica, although I can’t coax it to give me the exact answer ... I think this should be possible, let’s see ...
          $endgroup$
          – EGME
          May 12 at 19:17










        • $begingroup$
          While I let the computer run and trying something, I can add that you can compute equality to any number of digits you want. M does produce an exact solution for the summation, but it doesn’t “know” (at least not yet) that it is identical to the RHS of the above. Let’s see what happens if I let this run for a while.
          $endgroup$
          – EGME
          May 12 at 19:45












        • $begingroup$
          Oh this one would be perfect! Is it still open?
          $endgroup$
          – Kevin Buzzard
          May 12 at 20:10










        • $begingroup$
          @KevinBuzzard : Jon Borwein told me about this ten years ago and it was open then. I believe it's still open; you could try emailing Jesus Guillera to check. You can find Guillera's email address on the arXiv, e.g., arxiv.org/abs/1807.07394
          $endgroup$
          – Timothy Chow
          May 12 at 20:22










        • $begingroup$
          @KevinBuzzard J. Guillera confims that this is an open problem today (13 may 2019). I haven’t discounted the possibility of doing it with Mathematica just yet.
          $endgroup$
          – EGME
          May 13 at 16:41














        10












        10








        10





        $begingroup$

        As mentioned in another MO question,
        Gourevitch's conjecture is a nice example:
        $$sum_{n=0}^infty frac{1+14n+76n^2+168n^3}{2^{20n}}binom{2n}{n}^7 = frac{32}{pi^3}.$$






        share|cite|improve this answer











        $endgroup$



        As mentioned in another MO question,
        Gourevitch's conjecture is a nice example:
        $$sum_{n=0}^infty frac{1+14n+76n^2+168n^3}{2^{20n}}binom{2n}{n}^7 = frac{32}{pi^3}.$$







        share|cite|improve this answer














        share|cite|improve this answer



        share|cite|improve this answer








        answered May 12 at 18:50


























        community wiki





        Timothy Chow













        • $begingroup$
          This is verified numerically with Mathematica, although I can’t coax it to give me the exact answer ... I think this should be possible, let’s see ...
          $endgroup$
          – EGME
          May 12 at 19:17










        • $begingroup$
          While I let the computer run and trying something, I can add that you can compute equality to any number of digits you want. M does produce an exact solution for the summation, but it doesn’t “know” (at least not yet) that it is identical to the RHS of the above. Let’s see what happens if I let this run for a while.
          $endgroup$
          – EGME
          May 12 at 19:45












        • $begingroup$
          Oh this one would be perfect! Is it still open?
          $endgroup$
          – Kevin Buzzard
          May 12 at 20:10










        • $begingroup$
          @KevinBuzzard : Jon Borwein told me about this ten years ago and it was open then. I believe it's still open; you could try emailing Jesus Guillera to check. You can find Guillera's email address on the arXiv, e.g., arxiv.org/abs/1807.07394
          $endgroup$
          – Timothy Chow
          May 12 at 20:22










        • $begingroup$
          @KevinBuzzard J. Guillera confims that this is an open problem today (13 may 2019). I haven’t discounted the possibility of doing it with Mathematica just yet.
          $endgroup$
          – EGME
          May 13 at 16:41


















        • $begingroup$
          This is verified numerically with Mathematica, although I can’t coax it to give me the exact answer ... I think this should be possible, let’s see ...
          $endgroup$
          – EGME
          May 12 at 19:17










        • $begingroup$
          While I let the computer run and trying something, I can add that you can compute equality to any number of digits you want. M does produce an exact solution for the summation, but it doesn’t “know” (at least not yet) that it is identical to the RHS of the above. Let’s see what happens if I let this run for a while.
          $endgroup$
          – EGME
          May 12 at 19:45












        • $begingroup$
          Oh this one would be perfect! Is it still open?
          $endgroup$
          – Kevin Buzzard
          May 12 at 20:10










        • $begingroup$
          @KevinBuzzard : Jon Borwein told me about this ten years ago and it was open then. I believe it's still open; you could try emailing Jesus Guillera to check. You can find Guillera's email address on the arXiv, e.g., arxiv.org/abs/1807.07394
          $endgroup$
          – Timothy Chow
          May 12 at 20:22










        • $begingroup$
          @KevinBuzzard J. Guillera confims that this is an open problem today (13 may 2019). I haven’t discounted the possibility of doing it with Mathematica just yet.
          $endgroup$
          – EGME
          May 13 at 16:41
















        $begingroup$
        This is verified numerically with Mathematica, although I can’t coax it to give me the exact answer ... I think this should be possible, let’s see ...
        $endgroup$
        – EGME
        May 12 at 19:17




        $begingroup$
        This is verified numerically with Mathematica, although I can’t coax it to give me the exact answer ... I think this should be possible, let’s see ...
        $endgroup$
        – EGME
        May 12 at 19:17












        $begingroup$
        While I let the computer run and trying something, I can add that you can compute equality to any number of digits you want. M does produce an exact solution for the summation, but it doesn’t “know” (at least not yet) that it is identical to the RHS of the above. Let’s see what happens if I let this run for a while.
        $endgroup$
        – EGME
        May 12 at 19:45






        $begingroup$
        While I let the computer run and trying something, I can add that you can compute equality to any number of digits you want. M does produce an exact solution for the summation, but it doesn’t “know” (at least not yet) that it is identical to the RHS of the above. Let’s see what happens if I let this run for a while.
        $endgroup$
        – EGME
        May 12 at 19:45














        $begingroup$
        Oh this one would be perfect! Is it still open?
        $endgroup$
        – Kevin Buzzard
        May 12 at 20:10




        $begingroup$
        Oh this one would be perfect! Is it still open?
        $endgroup$
        – Kevin Buzzard
        May 12 at 20:10












        $begingroup$
        @KevinBuzzard : Jon Borwein told me about this ten years ago and it was open then. I believe it's still open; you could try emailing Jesus Guillera to check. You can find Guillera's email address on the arXiv, e.g., arxiv.org/abs/1807.07394
        $endgroup$
        – Timothy Chow
        May 12 at 20:22




        $begingroup$
        @KevinBuzzard : Jon Borwein told me about this ten years ago and it was open then. I believe it's still open; you could try emailing Jesus Guillera to check. You can find Guillera's email address on the arXiv, e.g., arxiv.org/abs/1807.07394
        $endgroup$
        – Timothy Chow
        May 12 at 20:22












        $begingroup$
        @KevinBuzzard J. Guillera confims that this is an open problem today (13 may 2019). I haven’t discounted the possibility of doing it with Mathematica just yet.
        $endgroup$
        – EGME
        May 13 at 16:41




        $begingroup$
        @KevinBuzzard J. Guillera confims that this is an open problem today (13 may 2019). I haven’t discounted the possibility of doing it with Mathematica just yet.
        $endgroup$
        – EGME
        May 13 at 16:41











        36












        $begingroup$

        Thomson’s problem for $n = 7$ provides a nice example:



        $$min_{x_1, ldots, x_7 in mathbb{S}^2} sum_{i=1}^7 sum_{j = i + 1}^7 frac{1}{|x_i - x_j|} = frac{1}{2} + 10 frac{1}{sqrt{2}} + 5sqrt{frac{2}{5 + sqrt{5}}} + 5sqrt{frac{1 + sqrt{5}}{2sqrt{5}}}$$



        Now let me explain. Thomson's problem is to find the minimal energy configuration for $n$ electrons on a unit sphere, i.e. the left-hand-side of the equation. The answer is only rigorously known for $n leq 6$ and $n = 12$. For $n = 7$ the solution is only conjectured.



        Now, the left-hand side of the equation above is computable since it is the minimum of a computable function over the sphere. (Moreover, it is fairly efficient to compute in practice, hence the filled-in table of minimal energies in the Wikipedia article.)



        The right hand side is the energy of the conjectured optimal configuration for the $n=7$ case. (See here for the specific distances between points, which I used in the above equation.)



        Many of the other values of $n$ have conjectured solutions and therefore give rise to similar equations.





        One thing which I find crazy about this example (and which might ruin it for you), is that while this equation has never been rigorously proved, it’s truth/falsity is decidable by the decidability of real-closed fields (see my answer to a similar problem here). Hence a clever programmer-mathematician may find a computer-assisted rigorous proof. Indeed, this is exactly what happened for the $n=5$ case. (Schwartz used custom code. It would be nice to have someone redo this computation in a formal theorem prover like HOL Light, Coq, or Lean.)






        share|cite|improve this answer











        $endgroup$









        • 2




          $begingroup$
          After breaking the symmetry (by fixing one electron and the direction to another that is not antipodal), the set of critical points is the intersection of some algebraic surfaces and is almost certainly provably finite using Groebner basis methods, although the computations may be too difficult to be practical.
          $endgroup$
          – Robert Israel
          May 8 at 3:11






        • 6




          $begingroup$
          An open conjecture in arithmetic geometry is whether any group scheme of order n is killed by n. This is true for n=1 and n prime (the latter a theorem of Deligne) but the n=4 case is still open. The n=4 case is simply the question "here is a completely explicit polynomial ring over the integers in about 20 variables -- is this explicit element in this explicit ideal?". Groebner basis methods are apparently not up to this yet.
          $endgroup$
          – Kevin Buzzard
          May 8 at 8:31












        • $begingroup$
          Just to be clear -- the n on the left hand side of the equation in this answer is 7, right?
          $endgroup$
          – Kevin Buzzard
          May 8 at 8:31










        • $begingroup$
          @KevinBuzzard Yes, $n=7$. I’ve made it explicit now.
          $endgroup$
          – Jason Rute
          May 8 at 10:58










        • $begingroup$
          The "min" annoys me a bit in this example, for some reason I can't quite explain.
          $endgroup$
          – Kevin Buzzard
          May 11 at 15:34
















        36












        $begingroup$

        Thomson’s problem for $n = 7$ provides a nice example:



        $$min_{x_1, ldots, x_7 in mathbb{S}^2} sum_{i=1}^7 sum_{j = i + 1}^7 frac{1}{|x_i - x_j|} = frac{1}{2} + 10 frac{1}{sqrt{2}} + 5sqrt{frac{2}{5 + sqrt{5}}} + 5sqrt{frac{1 + sqrt{5}}{2sqrt{5}}}$$



        Now let me explain. Thomson's problem is to find the minimal energy configuration for $n$ electrons on a unit sphere, i.e. the left-hand-side of the equation. The answer is only rigorously known for $n leq 6$ and $n = 12$. For $n = 7$ the solution is only conjectured.



        Now, the left-hand side of the equation above is computable since it is the minimum of a computable function over the sphere. (Moreover, it is fairly efficient to compute in practice, hence the filled-in table of minimal energies in the Wikipedia article.)



        The right hand side is the energy of the conjectured optimal configuration for the $n=7$ case. (See here for the specific distances between points, which I used in the above equation.)



        Many of the other values of $n$ have conjectured solutions and therefore give rise to similar equations.





        One thing which I find crazy about this example (and which might ruin it for you), is that while this equation has never been rigorously proved, it’s truth/falsity is decidable by the decidability of real-closed fields (see my answer to a similar problem here). Hence a clever programmer-mathematician may find a computer-assisted rigorous proof. Indeed, this is exactly what happened for the $n=5$ case. (Schwartz used custom code. It would be nice to have someone redo this computation in a formal theorem prover like HOL Light, Coq, or Lean.)






        share|cite|improve this answer











        $endgroup$









        • 2




          $begingroup$
          After breaking the symmetry (by fixing one electron and the direction to another that is not antipodal), the set of critical points is the intersection of some algebraic surfaces and is almost certainly provably finite using Groebner basis methods, although the computations may be too difficult to be practical.
          $endgroup$
          – Robert Israel
          May 8 at 3:11






        • 6




          $begingroup$
          An open conjecture in arithmetic geometry is whether any group scheme of order n is killed by n. This is true for n=1 and n prime (the latter a theorem of Deligne) but the n=4 case is still open. The n=4 case is simply the question "here is a completely explicit polynomial ring over the integers in about 20 variables -- is this explicit element in this explicit ideal?". Groebner basis methods are apparently not up to this yet.
          $endgroup$
          – Kevin Buzzard
          May 8 at 8:31












        • $begingroup$
          Just to be clear -- the n on the left hand side of the equation in this answer is 7, right?
          $endgroup$
          – Kevin Buzzard
          May 8 at 8:31










        • $begingroup$
          @KevinBuzzard Yes, $n=7$. I’ve made it explicit now.
          $endgroup$
          – Jason Rute
          May 8 at 10:58










        • $begingroup$
          The "min" annoys me a bit in this example, for some reason I can't quite explain.
          $endgroup$
          – Kevin Buzzard
          May 11 at 15:34














        36












        36








        36





        $begingroup$

        Thomson’s problem for $n = 7$ provides a nice example:



        $$min_{x_1, ldots, x_7 in mathbb{S}^2} sum_{i=1}^7 sum_{j = i + 1}^7 frac{1}{|x_i - x_j|} = frac{1}{2} + 10 frac{1}{sqrt{2}} + 5sqrt{frac{2}{5 + sqrt{5}}} + 5sqrt{frac{1 + sqrt{5}}{2sqrt{5}}}$$



        Now let me explain. Thomson's problem is to find the minimal energy configuration for $n$ electrons on a unit sphere, i.e. the left-hand-side of the equation. The answer is only rigorously known for $n leq 6$ and $n = 12$. For $n = 7$ the solution is only conjectured.



        Now, the left-hand side of the equation above is computable since it is the minimum of a computable function over the sphere. (Moreover, it is fairly efficient to compute in practice, hence the filled-in table of minimal energies in the Wikipedia article.)



        The right hand side is the energy of the conjectured optimal configuration for the $n=7$ case. (See here for the specific distances between points, which I used in the above equation.)



        Many of the other values of $n$ have conjectured solutions and therefore give rise to similar equations.





        One thing which I find crazy about this example (and which might ruin it for you), is that while this equation has never been rigorously proved, it’s truth/falsity is decidable by the decidability of real-closed fields (see my answer to a similar problem here). Hence a clever programmer-mathematician may find a computer-assisted rigorous proof. Indeed, this is exactly what happened for the $n=5$ case. (Schwartz used custom code. It would be nice to have someone redo this computation in a formal theorem prover like HOL Light, Coq, or Lean.)






        share|cite|improve this answer











        $endgroup$



        Thomson’s problem for $n = 7$ provides a nice example:



        $$min_{x_1, ldots, x_7 in mathbb{S}^2} sum_{i=1}^7 sum_{j = i + 1}^7 frac{1}{|x_i - x_j|} = frac{1}{2} + 10 frac{1}{sqrt{2}} + 5sqrt{frac{2}{5 + sqrt{5}}} + 5sqrt{frac{1 + sqrt{5}}{2sqrt{5}}}$$



        Now let me explain. Thomson's problem is to find the minimal energy configuration for $n$ electrons on a unit sphere, i.e. the left-hand-side of the equation. The answer is only rigorously known for $n leq 6$ and $n = 12$. For $n = 7$ the solution is only conjectured.



        Now, the left-hand side of the equation above is computable since it is the minimum of a computable function over the sphere. (Moreover, it is fairly efficient to compute in practice, hence the filled-in table of minimal energies in the Wikipedia article.)



        The right hand side is the energy of the conjectured optimal configuration for the $n=7$ case. (See here for the specific distances between points, which I used in the above equation.)



        Many of the other values of $n$ have conjectured solutions and therefore give rise to similar equations.





        One thing which I find crazy about this example (and which might ruin it for you), is that while this equation has never been rigorously proved, it’s truth/falsity is decidable by the decidability of real-closed fields (see my answer to a similar problem here). Hence a clever programmer-mathematician may find a computer-assisted rigorous proof. Indeed, this is exactly what happened for the $n=5$ case. (Schwartz used custom code. It would be nice to have someone redo this computation in a formal theorem prover like HOL Light, Coq, or Lean.)







        share|cite|improve this answer














        share|cite|improve this answer



        share|cite|improve this answer








        edited May 8 at 10:54


























        community wiki





        Jason Rute









        • 2




          $begingroup$
          After breaking the symmetry (by fixing one electron and the direction to another that is not antipodal), the set of critical points is the intersection of some algebraic surfaces and is almost certainly provably finite using Groebner basis methods, although the computations may be too difficult to be practical.
          $endgroup$
          – Robert Israel
          May 8 at 3:11






        • 6




          $begingroup$
          An open conjecture in arithmetic geometry is whether any group scheme of order n is killed by n. This is true for n=1 and n prime (the latter a theorem of Deligne) but the n=4 case is still open. The n=4 case is simply the question "here is a completely explicit polynomial ring over the integers in about 20 variables -- is this explicit element in this explicit ideal?". Groebner basis methods are apparently not up to this yet.
          $endgroup$
          – Kevin Buzzard
          May 8 at 8:31












        • $begingroup$
          Just to be clear -- the n on the left hand side of the equation in this answer is 7, right?
          $endgroup$
          – Kevin Buzzard
          May 8 at 8:31










        • $begingroup$
          @KevinBuzzard Yes, $n=7$. I’ve made it explicit now.
          $endgroup$
          – Jason Rute
          May 8 at 10:58










        • $begingroup$
          The "min" annoys me a bit in this example, for some reason I can't quite explain.
          $endgroup$
          – Kevin Buzzard
          May 11 at 15:34














        • 2




          $begingroup$
          After breaking the symmetry (by fixing one electron and the direction to another that is not antipodal), the set of critical points is the intersection of some algebraic surfaces and is almost certainly provably finite using Groebner basis methods, although the computations may be too difficult to be practical.
          $endgroup$
          – Robert Israel
          May 8 at 3:11






        • 6




          $begingroup$
          An open conjecture in arithmetic geometry is whether any group scheme of order n is killed by n. This is true for n=1 and n prime (the latter a theorem of Deligne) but the n=4 case is still open. The n=4 case is simply the question "here is a completely explicit polynomial ring over the integers in about 20 variables -- is this explicit element in this explicit ideal?". Groebner basis methods are apparently not up to this yet.
          $endgroup$
          – Kevin Buzzard
          May 8 at 8:31












        • $begingroup$
          Just to be clear -- the n on the left hand side of the equation in this answer is 7, right?
          $endgroup$
          – Kevin Buzzard
          May 8 at 8:31










        • $begingroup$
          @KevinBuzzard Yes, $n=7$. I’ve made it explicit now.
          $endgroup$
          – Jason Rute
          May 8 at 10:58










        • $begingroup$
          The "min" annoys me a bit in this example, for some reason I can't quite explain.
          $endgroup$
          – Kevin Buzzard
          May 11 at 15:34








        2




        2




        $begingroup$
        After breaking the symmetry (by fixing one electron and the direction to another that is not antipodal), the set of critical points is the intersection of some algebraic surfaces and is almost certainly provably finite using Groebner basis methods, although the computations may be too difficult to be practical.
        $endgroup$
        – Robert Israel
        May 8 at 3:11




        $begingroup$
        After breaking the symmetry (by fixing one electron and the direction to another that is not antipodal), the set of critical points is the intersection of some algebraic surfaces and is almost certainly provably finite using Groebner basis methods, although the computations may be too difficult to be practical.
        $endgroup$
        – Robert Israel
        May 8 at 3:11




        6




        6




        $begingroup$
        An open conjecture in arithmetic geometry is whether any group scheme of order n is killed by n. This is true for n=1 and n prime (the latter a theorem of Deligne) but the n=4 case is still open. The n=4 case is simply the question "here is a completely explicit polynomial ring over the integers in about 20 variables -- is this explicit element in this explicit ideal?". Groebner basis methods are apparently not up to this yet.
        $endgroup$
        – Kevin Buzzard
        May 8 at 8:31






        $begingroup$
        An open conjecture in arithmetic geometry is whether any group scheme of order n is killed by n. This is true for n=1 and n prime (the latter a theorem of Deligne) but the n=4 case is still open. The n=4 case is simply the question "here is a completely explicit polynomial ring over the integers in about 20 variables -- is this explicit element in this explicit ideal?". Groebner basis methods are apparently not up to this yet.
        $endgroup$
        – Kevin Buzzard
        May 8 at 8:31














        $begingroup$
        Just to be clear -- the n on the left hand side of the equation in this answer is 7, right?
        $endgroup$
        – Kevin Buzzard
        May 8 at 8:31




        $begingroup$
        Just to be clear -- the n on the left hand side of the equation in this answer is 7, right?
        $endgroup$
        – Kevin Buzzard
        May 8 at 8:31












        $begingroup$
        @KevinBuzzard Yes, $n=7$. I’ve made it explicit now.
        $endgroup$
        – Jason Rute
        May 8 at 10:58




        $begingroup$
        @KevinBuzzard Yes, $n=7$. I’ve made it explicit now.
        $endgroup$
        – Jason Rute
        May 8 at 10:58












        $begingroup$
        The "min" annoys me a bit in this example, for some reason I can't quite explain.
        $endgroup$
        – Kevin Buzzard
        May 11 at 15:34




        $begingroup$
        The "min" annoys me a bit in this example, for some reason I can't quite explain.
        $endgroup$
        – Kevin Buzzard
        May 11 at 15:34











        13












        $begingroup$

        The conjectures on special values of $L$-functions provide a lot of examples. For example, David Boyd conjectured in his celebrated paper that the Mahler measure of the Laurent polynomial $P_k(x,y)=x+frac{1}{x}+y+frac{1}{y}+k$, where $k$ is an integer $neq 0, pm 4$, is proportional to $L'(E_k,0)$, where $E_k$ is the elliptic curve defined by the equation $P_k(x,y)=0$. It is not difficult to check these identities numerically to thousands of decimal places, but so far they have been proved only in a finite (and small) number of cases. (Technically you asked about equalities, here they involve some rational factor, which is however simple enough to guess in each particular case, although its value in general is mysterious, e.g. may be linked to the Bloch-Kato conjectures).



        The equality mentioned in the OP (page 10 of Bailey-Borwein-Broadhurst-Zudilin) is essentially Borel's theorem in disguise for the $K$-group $K_3(mathbb{Q}(sqrt{-7}))$. Equation (10) of the same article is an instance of the following question: we have two elements in some $K$-group which has (or should have) rank 1, so they should be proportional hence their regulators should also be proportional. In the present case, equation (10) should follow from the 5-term functional equation of the dilogarithm evaluated at particular algebraic arguments, which is however not an easy task (there is an obvious but inefficient algorithm since the set of algebraic numbers is countable).






        share|cite|improve this answer











        $endgroup$


















          13












          $begingroup$

          The conjectures on special values of $L$-functions provide a lot of examples. For example, David Boyd conjectured in his celebrated paper that the Mahler measure of the Laurent polynomial $P_k(x,y)=x+frac{1}{x}+y+frac{1}{y}+k$, where $k$ is an integer $neq 0, pm 4$, is proportional to $L'(E_k,0)$, where $E_k$ is the elliptic curve defined by the equation $P_k(x,y)=0$. It is not difficult to check these identities numerically to thousands of decimal places, but so far they have been proved only in a finite (and small) number of cases. (Technically you asked about equalities, here they involve some rational factor, which is however simple enough to guess in each particular case, although its value in general is mysterious, e.g. may be linked to the Bloch-Kato conjectures).



          The equality mentioned in the OP (page 10 of Bailey-Borwein-Broadhurst-Zudilin) is essentially Borel's theorem in disguise for the $K$-group $K_3(mathbb{Q}(sqrt{-7}))$. Equation (10) of the same article is an instance of the following question: we have two elements in some $K$-group which has (or should have) rank 1, so they should be proportional hence their regulators should also be proportional. In the present case, equation (10) should follow from the 5-term functional equation of the dilogarithm evaluated at particular algebraic arguments, which is however not an easy task (there is an obvious but inefficient algorithm since the set of algebraic numbers is countable).






          share|cite|improve this answer











          $endgroup$
















            13












            13








            13





            $begingroup$

            The conjectures on special values of $L$-functions provide a lot of examples. For example, David Boyd conjectured in his celebrated paper that the Mahler measure of the Laurent polynomial $P_k(x,y)=x+frac{1}{x}+y+frac{1}{y}+k$, where $k$ is an integer $neq 0, pm 4$, is proportional to $L'(E_k,0)$, where $E_k$ is the elliptic curve defined by the equation $P_k(x,y)=0$. It is not difficult to check these identities numerically to thousands of decimal places, but so far they have been proved only in a finite (and small) number of cases. (Technically you asked about equalities, here they involve some rational factor, which is however simple enough to guess in each particular case, although its value in general is mysterious, e.g. may be linked to the Bloch-Kato conjectures).



            The equality mentioned in the OP (page 10 of Bailey-Borwein-Broadhurst-Zudilin) is essentially Borel's theorem in disguise for the $K$-group $K_3(mathbb{Q}(sqrt{-7}))$. Equation (10) of the same article is an instance of the following question: we have two elements in some $K$-group which has (or should have) rank 1, so they should be proportional hence their regulators should also be proportional. In the present case, equation (10) should follow from the 5-term functional equation of the dilogarithm evaluated at particular algebraic arguments, which is however not an easy task (there is an obvious but inefficient algorithm since the set of algebraic numbers is countable).






            share|cite|improve this answer











            $endgroup$



            The conjectures on special values of $L$-functions provide a lot of examples. For example, David Boyd conjectured in his celebrated paper that the Mahler measure of the Laurent polynomial $P_k(x,y)=x+frac{1}{x}+y+frac{1}{y}+k$, where $k$ is an integer $neq 0, pm 4$, is proportional to $L'(E_k,0)$, where $E_k$ is the elliptic curve defined by the equation $P_k(x,y)=0$. It is not difficult to check these identities numerically to thousands of decimal places, but so far they have been proved only in a finite (and small) number of cases. (Technically you asked about equalities, here they involve some rational factor, which is however simple enough to guess in each particular case, although its value in general is mysterious, e.g. may be linked to the Bloch-Kato conjectures).



            The equality mentioned in the OP (page 10 of Bailey-Borwein-Broadhurst-Zudilin) is essentially Borel's theorem in disguise for the $K$-group $K_3(mathbb{Q}(sqrt{-7}))$. Equation (10) of the same article is an instance of the following question: we have two elements in some $K$-group which has (or should have) rank 1, so they should be proportional hence their regulators should also be proportional. In the present case, equation (10) should follow from the 5-term functional equation of the dilogarithm evaluated at particular algebraic arguments, which is however not an easy task (there is an obvious but inefficient algorithm since the set of algebraic numbers is countable).







            share|cite|improve this answer














            share|cite|improve this answer



            share|cite|improve this answer








            edited May 8 at 10:14


























            community wiki





            François Brunault
























                12












                $begingroup$

                The moving sofa constant is conjectured to be 2.2195..., which is computable as the implicit solution of a set of equations (see Eqs. 1-4 in Romik 2018). On the other hand, while not immediately obvious, the fact that the moving sofa constant is computable is reasonably intuitive, and in fact, Dan Romik and I proved that it is.






                share|cite|improve this answer











                $endgroup$


















                  12












                  $begingroup$

                  The moving sofa constant is conjectured to be 2.2195..., which is computable as the implicit solution of a set of equations (see Eqs. 1-4 in Romik 2018). On the other hand, while not immediately obvious, the fact that the moving sofa constant is computable is reasonably intuitive, and in fact, Dan Romik and I proved that it is.






                  share|cite|improve this answer











                  $endgroup$
















                    12












                    12








                    12





                    $begingroup$

                    The moving sofa constant is conjectured to be 2.2195..., which is computable as the implicit solution of a set of equations (see Eqs. 1-4 in Romik 2018). On the other hand, while not immediately obvious, the fact that the moving sofa constant is computable is reasonably intuitive, and in fact, Dan Romik and I proved that it is.






                    share|cite|improve this answer











                    $endgroup$



                    The moving sofa constant is conjectured to be 2.2195..., which is computable as the implicit solution of a set of equations (see Eqs. 1-4 in Romik 2018). On the other hand, while not immediately obvious, the fact that the moving sofa constant is computable is reasonably intuitive, and in fact, Dan Romik and I proved that it is.







                    share|cite|improve this answer














                    share|cite|improve this answer



                    share|cite|improve this answer








                    answered May 8 at 13:12


























                    community wiki





                    Yoav Kallus
























                        10












                        $begingroup$

                        Consider $x = sum_{n=0}^infty a_n 2^{-n}$ where $a_n = 1$ if $n$ is an odd perfect number, $0$ if not. It is suspected that $x = 0$, but not known. By checking the first $n$ natural numbers, we can approximate $x$ with an error at most $2^{-n}$.



                        Along similar lines: by the solution to Hilbert's 10th problem a polynomial $P(a, x_1,ldots,x_n)$ with integer coefficients is known explicitly, such that the set of natural numbers $a$ for which $P(a,x_1,ldots,x_n)=0$ has a solution in natural numbers is not computable. Of course if such a solution exists, we can compute that it exists, but there is no algorithm to decide whether it exists.
                        Let
                        $$X(a) = sum_{(x_1,x_2,ldots,x_n) in mathbb N^n} chi_0(P(a,x_1,ldots,x_n)); 2^{-x_1 - ldots - x_n}$$
                        where $chi_0(x) = 1$ if $x=0$, $0$ otherwise. The numbers $X(a)$ are all computable in the sense that
                        arbitrarily good approximations are available, but there is no algorithm to decide whether $X(a)=0$. For any consistent theory $T$, there are some $a$ such that $X(a)=0$ but there is no proof in $T$ that $X(a)=0$.






                        share|cite|improve this answer











                        $endgroup$









                        • 18




                          $begingroup$
                          I am irritated that (a) I cannot understand equation (10) in BBBZ and (b) all the other answers have been of the form "let's encode a well-known conjecture into a possibly slightly artificial real number". The original now-proved equality had none of these deficits.
                          $endgroup$
                          – Kevin Buzzard
                          May 7 at 19:21


















                        10












                        $begingroup$

                        Consider $x = sum_{n=0}^infty a_n 2^{-n}$ where $a_n = 1$ if $n$ is an odd perfect number, $0$ if not. It is suspected that $x = 0$, but not known. By checking the first $n$ natural numbers, we can approximate $x$ with an error at most $2^{-n}$.



                        Along similar lines: by the solution to Hilbert's 10th problem a polynomial $P(a, x_1,ldots,x_n)$ with integer coefficients is known explicitly, such that the set of natural numbers $a$ for which $P(a,x_1,ldots,x_n)=0$ has a solution in natural numbers is not computable. Of course if such a solution exists, we can compute that it exists, but there is no algorithm to decide whether it exists.
                        Let
                        $$X(a) = sum_{(x_1,x_2,ldots,x_n) in mathbb N^n} chi_0(P(a,x_1,ldots,x_n)); 2^{-x_1 - ldots - x_n}$$
                        where $chi_0(x) = 1$ if $x=0$, $0$ otherwise. The numbers $X(a)$ are all computable in the sense that
                        arbitrarily good approximations are available, but there is no algorithm to decide whether $X(a)=0$. For any consistent theory $T$, there are some $a$ such that $X(a)=0$ but there is no proof in $T$ that $X(a)=0$.






                        share|cite|improve this answer











                        $endgroup$









                        • 18




                          $begingroup$
                          I am irritated that (a) I cannot understand equation (10) in BBBZ and (b) all the other answers have been of the form "let's encode a well-known conjecture into a possibly slightly artificial real number". The original now-proved equality had none of these deficits.
                          $endgroup$
                          – Kevin Buzzard
                          May 7 at 19:21
















                        10












                        10








                        10





                        $begingroup$

                        Consider $x = sum_{n=0}^infty a_n 2^{-n}$ where $a_n = 1$ if $n$ is an odd perfect number, $0$ if not. It is suspected that $x = 0$, but not known. By checking the first $n$ natural numbers, we can approximate $x$ with an error at most $2^{-n}$.



                        Along similar lines: by the solution to Hilbert's 10th problem a polynomial $P(a, x_1,ldots,x_n)$ with integer coefficients is known explicitly, such that the set of natural numbers $a$ for which $P(a,x_1,ldots,x_n)=0$ has a solution in natural numbers is not computable. Of course if such a solution exists, we can compute that it exists, but there is no algorithm to decide whether it exists.
                        Let
                        $$X(a) = sum_{(x_1,x_2,ldots,x_n) in mathbb N^n} chi_0(P(a,x_1,ldots,x_n)); 2^{-x_1 - ldots - x_n}$$
                        where $chi_0(x) = 1$ if $x=0$, $0$ otherwise. The numbers $X(a)$ are all computable in the sense that
                        arbitrarily good approximations are available, but there is no algorithm to decide whether $X(a)=0$. For any consistent theory $T$, there are some $a$ such that $X(a)=0$ but there is no proof in $T$ that $X(a)=0$.






                        share|cite|improve this answer











                        $endgroup$



                        Consider $x = sum_{n=0}^infty a_n 2^{-n}$ where $a_n = 1$ if $n$ is an odd perfect number, $0$ if not. It is suspected that $x = 0$, but not known. By checking the first $n$ natural numbers, we can approximate $x$ with an error at most $2^{-n}$.



                        Along similar lines: by the solution to Hilbert's 10th problem a polynomial $P(a, x_1,ldots,x_n)$ with integer coefficients is known explicitly, such that the set of natural numbers $a$ for which $P(a,x_1,ldots,x_n)=0$ has a solution in natural numbers is not computable. Of course if such a solution exists, we can compute that it exists, but there is no algorithm to decide whether it exists.
                        Let
                        $$X(a) = sum_{(x_1,x_2,ldots,x_n) in mathbb N^n} chi_0(P(a,x_1,ldots,x_n)); 2^{-x_1 - ldots - x_n}$$
                        where $chi_0(x) = 1$ if $x=0$, $0$ otherwise. The numbers $X(a)$ are all computable in the sense that
                        arbitrarily good approximations are available, but there is no algorithm to decide whether $X(a)=0$. For any consistent theory $T$, there are some $a$ such that $X(a)=0$ but there is no proof in $T$ that $X(a)=0$.







                        share|cite|improve this answer














                        share|cite|improve this answer



                        share|cite|improve this answer








                        edited May 7 at 19:35


























                        community wiki





                        Robert Israel









                        • 18




                          $begingroup$
                          I am irritated that (a) I cannot understand equation (10) in BBBZ and (b) all the other answers have been of the form "let's encode a well-known conjecture into a possibly slightly artificial real number". The original now-proved equality had none of these deficits.
                          $endgroup$
                          – Kevin Buzzard
                          May 7 at 19:21
















                        • 18




                          $begingroup$
                          I am irritated that (a) I cannot understand equation (10) in BBBZ and (b) all the other answers have been of the form "let's encode a well-known conjecture into a possibly slightly artificial real number". The original now-proved equality had none of these deficits.
                          $endgroup$
                          – Kevin Buzzard
                          May 7 at 19:21










                        18




                        18




                        $begingroup$
                        I am irritated that (a) I cannot understand equation (10) in BBBZ and (b) all the other answers have been of the form "let's encode a well-known conjecture into a possibly slightly artificial real number". The original now-proved equality had none of these deficits.
                        $endgroup$
                        – Kevin Buzzard
                        May 7 at 19:21






                        $begingroup$
                        I am irritated that (a) I cannot understand equation (10) in BBBZ and (b) all the other answers have been of the form "let's encode a well-known conjecture into a possibly slightly artificial real number". The original now-proved equality had none of these deficits.
                        $endgroup$
                        – Kevin Buzzard
                        May 7 at 19:21













                        4












                        $begingroup$

                        One of my favourite answers to this question is due to @Zidane, who wrote it as a comment to the question.



                        Let $E$ be an elliptic curve of algebraic rank 4, for example the curve



                        $$y^2 + xy = x^3 − x^2 − 79x + 289$$



                        (see for example equation 1.4.1 of William Stein's book). The current state of the art (as far as I know) is that BSD says that this curve should have analytic rank 4, however known techniques cannot rule out analytic rank 2. Hence $L''(E,1)$ is conjectured, but not known, to be zero. The curve is modular, and the $L$-function of the modular form can be analytically continued to $s=1$ no problem, and its second derivative computed to many decimal places. My memory is that Stein did in fact do this, and observed that, unsurprisingly, it looked like it was zero. I guess it would actually be a big breakthrough if this number were proved to be zero; we don't as far as I know have techniques which access second derivatives of $L$-functions of elliptic curves yet.






                        share|cite|improve this answer











                        $endgroup$


















                          4












                          $begingroup$

                          One of my favourite answers to this question is due to @Zidane, who wrote it as a comment to the question.



                          Let $E$ be an elliptic curve of algebraic rank 4, for example the curve



                          $$y^2 + xy = x^3 − x^2 − 79x + 289$$



                          (see for example equation 1.4.1 of William Stein's book). The current state of the art (as far as I know) is that BSD says that this curve should have analytic rank 4, however known techniques cannot rule out analytic rank 2. Hence $L''(E,1)$ is conjectured, but not known, to be zero. The curve is modular, and the $L$-function of the modular form can be analytically continued to $s=1$ no problem, and its second derivative computed to many decimal places. My memory is that Stein did in fact do this, and observed that, unsurprisingly, it looked like it was zero. I guess it would actually be a big breakthrough if this number were proved to be zero; we don't as far as I know have techniques which access second derivatives of $L$-functions of elliptic curves yet.






                          share|cite|improve this answer











                          $endgroup$
















                            4












                            4








                            4





                            $begingroup$

                            One of my favourite answers to this question is due to @Zidane, who wrote it as a comment to the question.



                            Let $E$ be an elliptic curve of algebraic rank 4, for example the curve



                            $$y^2 + xy = x^3 − x^2 − 79x + 289$$



                            (see for example equation 1.4.1 of William Stein's book). The current state of the art (as far as I know) is that BSD says that this curve should have analytic rank 4, however known techniques cannot rule out analytic rank 2. Hence $L''(E,1)$ is conjectured, but not known, to be zero. The curve is modular, and the $L$-function of the modular form can be analytically continued to $s=1$ no problem, and its second derivative computed to many decimal places. My memory is that Stein did in fact do this, and observed that, unsurprisingly, it looked like it was zero. I guess it would actually be a big breakthrough if this number were proved to be zero; we don't as far as I know have techniques which access second derivatives of $L$-functions of elliptic curves yet.






                            share|cite|improve this answer











                            $endgroup$



                            One of my favourite answers to this question is due to @Zidane, who wrote it as a comment to the question.



                            Let $E$ be an elliptic curve of algebraic rank 4, for example the curve



                            $$y^2 + xy = x^3 − x^2 − 79x + 289$$



                            (see for example equation 1.4.1 of William Stein's book). The current state of the art (as far as I know) is that BSD says that this curve should have analytic rank 4, however known techniques cannot rule out analytic rank 2. Hence $L''(E,1)$ is conjectured, but not known, to be zero. The curve is modular, and the $L$-function of the modular form can be analytically continued to $s=1$ no problem, and its second derivative computed to many decimal places. My memory is that Stein did in fact do this, and observed that, unsurprisingly, it looked like it was zero. I guess it would actually be a big breakthrough if this number were proved to be zero; we don't as far as I know have techniques which access second derivatives of $L$-functions of elliptic curves yet.







                            share|cite|improve this answer














                            share|cite|improve this answer



                            share|cite|improve this answer








                            answered May 25 at 22:24


























                            community wiki





                            Kevin Buzzard
























                                2












                                $begingroup$

                                For a very long time, people believed but could not prove that the densest possible sphere packing had density $piover 3sqrt 2$.



                                This was Kepler's conjecture, finally proved by Hales in 1998, or alternatively (since the referees reported that they were 99% sure that the 1998 proof was correct but they couldn't be completely sure), by Hales and collaborators through machine formalization completed in 2015.






                                share|cite|improve this answer











                                $endgroup$









                                • 1




                                  $begingroup$
                                  It's kind of annoying that this is an example of the form "These numbers were conjectured to be equal...oh but now it's a theorem". This answer hence suffers from the same problem which Stanley's post does. Your 17 pi^4/360 comment has none of these problems -- please post that as an answer too!
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – Kevin Buzzard
                                  May 8 at 8:37








                                • 3




                                  $begingroup$
                                  @Wojowu while it's definitely not clear that the optimal sphere packing density is computable, it's woth pointing out that the optimal lattice sphere packing is computable (Voronoi's algorithm), unproved for $nge 9$ ($nneq 24$), and unlikely to be greater than known lower bounds for $9le nle 23$.
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – Yoav Kallus
                                  May 8 at 13:18






                                • 3




                                  $begingroup$
                                  As for whether the optimal sphere packing number is computable (before Hale’s proof), there has been a lot of confusion about this. I’ve heard highly qualified logicians say that Kepler’s conjecture is decidable from basically the decidability of RCF. Then similar ideas can be used to compute the optimal ratio. This appears not to be the case: mathoverflow.net/questions/317692/… (However the optimal packing in a cube of fixed size is computable. The issue is that the limit as the cube grows is not obviously computable.)
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – Jason Rute
                                  May 8 at 13:50






                                • 1




                                  $begingroup$
                                  @JasonRute that is really interesting about the limit as the cube grows: it sounds computable but it might not be, if it converges slowly enough that the cube has to grow by an uncomputable amount for each extra decimal place. I wonder if there are interesting mathematical constants that can be described as straightforward infinite series but are uncomputable for that reason. I don't count things like Chaitin's constant.
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – none
                                  May 9 at 9:15








                                • 4




                                  $begingroup$
                                  I think optimal density in cube should approximate optimal density in Euclidean space to constant/(cube side): from above, tile the cube to get an infinite packing; from below, pick cubic region of the infinite packing with highest density and remove the balls that stick out. So, the optimal packing should be computable, but Henry Cohn's answer linked above is about decidability of eaulity to a certain value, which is a different issue.
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – Yoav Kallus
                                  May 10 at 1:52
















                                2












                                $begingroup$

                                For a very long time, people believed but could not prove that the densest possible sphere packing had density $piover 3sqrt 2$.



                                This was Kepler's conjecture, finally proved by Hales in 1998, or alternatively (since the referees reported that they were 99% sure that the 1998 proof was correct but they couldn't be completely sure), by Hales and collaborators through machine formalization completed in 2015.






                                share|cite|improve this answer











                                $endgroup$









                                • 1




                                  $begingroup$
                                  It's kind of annoying that this is an example of the form "These numbers were conjectured to be equal...oh but now it's a theorem". This answer hence suffers from the same problem which Stanley's post does. Your 17 pi^4/360 comment has none of these problems -- please post that as an answer too!
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – Kevin Buzzard
                                  May 8 at 8:37








                                • 3




                                  $begingroup$
                                  @Wojowu while it's definitely not clear that the optimal sphere packing density is computable, it's woth pointing out that the optimal lattice sphere packing is computable (Voronoi's algorithm), unproved for $nge 9$ ($nneq 24$), and unlikely to be greater than known lower bounds for $9le nle 23$.
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – Yoav Kallus
                                  May 8 at 13:18






                                • 3




                                  $begingroup$
                                  As for whether the optimal sphere packing number is computable (before Hale’s proof), there has been a lot of confusion about this. I’ve heard highly qualified logicians say that Kepler’s conjecture is decidable from basically the decidability of RCF. Then similar ideas can be used to compute the optimal ratio. This appears not to be the case: mathoverflow.net/questions/317692/… (However the optimal packing in a cube of fixed size is computable. The issue is that the limit as the cube grows is not obviously computable.)
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – Jason Rute
                                  May 8 at 13:50






                                • 1




                                  $begingroup$
                                  @JasonRute that is really interesting about the limit as the cube grows: it sounds computable but it might not be, if it converges slowly enough that the cube has to grow by an uncomputable amount for each extra decimal place. I wonder if there are interesting mathematical constants that can be described as straightforward infinite series but are uncomputable for that reason. I don't count things like Chaitin's constant.
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – none
                                  May 9 at 9:15








                                • 4




                                  $begingroup$
                                  I think optimal density in cube should approximate optimal density in Euclidean space to constant/(cube side): from above, tile the cube to get an infinite packing; from below, pick cubic region of the infinite packing with highest density and remove the balls that stick out. So, the optimal packing should be computable, but Henry Cohn's answer linked above is about decidability of eaulity to a certain value, which is a different issue.
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – Yoav Kallus
                                  May 10 at 1:52














                                2












                                2








                                2





                                $begingroup$

                                For a very long time, people believed but could not prove that the densest possible sphere packing had density $piover 3sqrt 2$.



                                This was Kepler's conjecture, finally proved by Hales in 1998, or alternatively (since the referees reported that they were 99% sure that the 1998 proof was correct but they couldn't be completely sure), by Hales and collaborators through machine formalization completed in 2015.






                                share|cite|improve this answer











                                $endgroup$



                                For a very long time, people believed but could not prove that the densest possible sphere packing had density $piover 3sqrt 2$.



                                This was Kepler's conjecture, finally proved by Hales in 1998, or alternatively (since the referees reported that they were 99% sure that the 1998 proof was correct but they couldn't be completely sure), by Hales and collaborators through machine formalization completed in 2015.







                                share|cite|improve this answer














                                share|cite|improve this answer



                                share|cite|improve this answer








                                answered May 8 at 6:40


























                                community wiki





                                none









                                • 1




                                  $begingroup$
                                  It's kind of annoying that this is an example of the form "These numbers were conjectured to be equal...oh but now it's a theorem". This answer hence suffers from the same problem which Stanley's post does. Your 17 pi^4/360 comment has none of these problems -- please post that as an answer too!
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – Kevin Buzzard
                                  May 8 at 8:37








                                • 3




                                  $begingroup$
                                  @Wojowu while it's definitely not clear that the optimal sphere packing density is computable, it's woth pointing out that the optimal lattice sphere packing is computable (Voronoi's algorithm), unproved for $nge 9$ ($nneq 24$), and unlikely to be greater than known lower bounds for $9le nle 23$.
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – Yoav Kallus
                                  May 8 at 13:18






                                • 3




                                  $begingroup$
                                  As for whether the optimal sphere packing number is computable (before Hale’s proof), there has been a lot of confusion about this. I’ve heard highly qualified logicians say that Kepler’s conjecture is decidable from basically the decidability of RCF. Then similar ideas can be used to compute the optimal ratio. This appears not to be the case: mathoverflow.net/questions/317692/… (However the optimal packing in a cube of fixed size is computable. The issue is that the limit as the cube grows is not obviously computable.)
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – Jason Rute
                                  May 8 at 13:50






                                • 1




                                  $begingroup$
                                  @JasonRute that is really interesting about the limit as the cube grows: it sounds computable but it might not be, if it converges slowly enough that the cube has to grow by an uncomputable amount for each extra decimal place. I wonder if there are interesting mathematical constants that can be described as straightforward infinite series but are uncomputable for that reason. I don't count things like Chaitin's constant.
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – none
                                  May 9 at 9:15








                                • 4




                                  $begingroup$
                                  I think optimal density in cube should approximate optimal density in Euclidean space to constant/(cube side): from above, tile the cube to get an infinite packing; from below, pick cubic region of the infinite packing with highest density and remove the balls that stick out. So, the optimal packing should be computable, but Henry Cohn's answer linked above is about decidability of eaulity to a certain value, which is a different issue.
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – Yoav Kallus
                                  May 10 at 1:52














                                • 1




                                  $begingroup$
                                  It's kind of annoying that this is an example of the form "These numbers were conjectured to be equal...oh but now it's a theorem". This answer hence suffers from the same problem which Stanley's post does. Your 17 pi^4/360 comment has none of these problems -- please post that as an answer too!
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – Kevin Buzzard
                                  May 8 at 8:37








                                • 3




                                  $begingroup$
                                  @Wojowu while it's definitely not clear that the optimal sphere packing density is computable, it's woth pointing out that the optimal lattice sphere packing is computable (Voronoi's algorithm), unproved for $nge 9$ ($nneq 24$), and unlikely to be greater than known lower bounds for $9le nle 23$.
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – Yoav Kallus
                                  May 8 at 13:18






                                • 3




                                  $begingroup$
                                  As for whether the optimal sphere packing number is computable (before Hale’s proof), there has been a lot of confusion about this. I’ve heard highly qualified logicians say that Kepler’s conjecture is decidable from basically the decidability of RCF. Then similar ideas can be used to compute the optimal ratio. This appears not to be the case: mathoverflow.net/questions/317692/… (However the optimal packing in a cube of fixed size is computable. The issue is that the limit as the cube grows is not obviously computable.)
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – Jason Rute
                                  May 8 at 13:50






                                • 1




                                  $begingroup$
                                  @JasonRute that is really interesting about the limit as the cube grows: it sounds computable but it might not be, if it converges slowly enough that the cube has to grow by an uncomputable amount for each extra decimal place. I wonder if there are interesting mathematical constants that can be described as straightforward infinite series but are uncomputable for that reason. I don't count things like Chaitin's constant.
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – none
                                  May 9 at 9:15








                                • 4




                                  $begingroup$
                                  I think optimal density in cube should approximate optimal density in Euclidean space to constant/(cube side): from above, tile the cube to get an infinite packing; from below, pick cubic region of the infinite packing with highest density and remove the balls that stick out. So, the optimal packing should be computable, but Henry Cohn's answer linked above is about decidability of eaulity to a certain value, which is a different issue.
                                  $endgroup$
                                  – Yoav Kallus
                                  May 10 at 1:52








                                1




                                1




                                $begingroup$
                                It's kind of annoying that this is an example of the form "These numbers were conjectured to be equal...oh but now it's a theorem". This answer hence suffers from the same problem which Stanley's post does. Your 17 pi^4/360 comment has none of these problems -- please post that as an answer too!
                                $endgroup$
                                – Kevin Buzzard
                                May 8 at 8:37






                                $begingroup$
                                It's kind of annoying that this is an example of the form "These numbers were conjectured to be equal...oh but now it's a theorem". This answer hence suffers from the same problem which Stanley's post does. Your 17 pi^4/360 comment has none of these problems -- please post that as an answer too!
                                $endgroup$
                                – Kevin Buzzard
                                May 8 at 8:37






                                3




                                3




                                $begingroup$
                                @Wojowu while it's definitely not clear that the optimal sphere packing density is computable, it's woth pointing out that the optimal lattice sphere packing is computable (Voronoi's algorithm), unproved for $nge 9$ ($nneq 24$), and unlikely to be greater than known lower bounds for $9le nle 23$.
                                $endgroup$
                                – Yoav Kallus
                                May 8 at 13:18




                                $begingroup$
                                @Wojowu while it's definitely not clear that the optimal sphere packing density is computable, it's woth pointing out that the optimal lattice sphere packing is computable (Voronoi's algorithm), unproved for $nge 9$ ($nneq 24$), and unlikely to be greater than known lower bounds for $9le nle 23$.
                                $endgroup$
                                – Yoav Kallus
                                May 8 at 13:18




                                3




                                3




                                $begingroup$
                                As for whether the optimal sphere packing number is computable (before Hale’s proof), there has been a lot of confusion about this. I’ve heard highly qualified logicians say that Kepler’s conjecture is decidable from basically the decidability of RCF. Then similar ideas can be used to compute the optimal ratio. This appears not to be the case: mathoverflow.net/questions/317692/… (However the optimal packing in a cube of fixed size is computable. The issue is that the limit as the cube grows is not obviously computable.)
                                $endgroup$
                                – Jason Rute
                                May 8 at 13:50




                                $begingroup$
                                As for whether the optimal sphere packing number is computable (before Hale’s proof), there has been a lot of confusion about this. I’ve heard highly qualified logicians say that Kepler’s conjecture is decidable from basically the decidability of RCF. Then similar ideas can be used to compute the optimal ratio. This appears not to be the case: mathoverflow.net/questions/317692/… (However the optimal packing in a cube of fixed size is computable. The issue is that the limit as the cube grows is not obviously computable.)
                                $endgroup$
                                – Jason Rute
                                May 8 at 13:50




                                1




                                1




                                $begingroup$
                                @JasonRute that is really interesting about the limit as the cube grows: it sounds computable but it might not be, if it converges slowly enough that the cube has to grow by an uncomputable amount for each extra decimal place. I wonder if there are interesting mathematical constants that can be described as straightforward infinite series but are uncomputable for that reason. I don't count things like Chaitin's constant.
                                $endgroup$
                                – none
                                May 9 at 9:15






                                $begingroup$
                                @JasonRute that is really interesting about the limit as the cube grows: it sounds computable but it might not be, if it converges slowly enough that the cube has to grow by an uncomputable amount for each extra decimal place. I wonder if there are interesting mathematical constants that can be described as straightforward infinite series but are uncomputable for that reason. I don't count things like Chaitin's constant.
                                $endgroup$
                                – none
                                May 9 at 9:15






                                4




                                4




                                $begingroup$
                                I think optimal density in cube should approximate optimal density in Euclidean space to constant/(cube side): from above, tile the cube to get an infinite packing; from below, pick cubic region of the infinite packing with highest density and remove the balls that stick out. So, the optimal packing should be computable, but Henry Cohn's answer linked above is about decidability of eaulity to a certain value, which is a different issue.
                                $endgroup$
                                – Yoav Kallus
                                May 10 at 1:52




                                $begingroup$
                                I think optimal density in cube should approximate optimal density in Euclidean space to constant/(cube side): from above, tile the cube to get an infinite packing; from below, pick cubic region of the infinite packing with highest density and remove the balls that stick out. So, the optimal packing should be computable, but Henry Cohn's answer linked above is about decidability of eaulity to a certain value, which is a different issue.
                                $endgroup$
                                – Yoav Kallus
                                May 10 at 1:52


















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