3X+1@homeThe 3x+1 conjecture is an unsolved conjecture in mathematics. It is also known as the Collatz conjecture (after Lothar Collatz, who first proposed it in 1937), as the Ulam conjecture (after Stanislaw Ulam), as the Syracuse problem, as the hailstone sequence or hailstone numbers, or as wondrous numbers per Gödel, Escher, Bach. It asks whether a certain kind of number sequence always ends in the same way, regardless of the starting number. Paul Erdõs said of the 3x+1 conjecture, "Mathematics is not yet ready for such problems." This project seeks to find large solutions to this conjecture. ABC@homeHelp solve one of the greatest open problems in mathematics, the ABC conjecture! The conjecture is stated in terms of simple properties of three integers, one of which is the sum of the other two (a + b = c): The ABC conjecture has a large number of interesting consequences, including its relationship to questions in number theory, and therefore Fermat's Last Theorem. The ABC conjecture also gives a conditional proof for other conjectures (if the ABC conjecture were true, these other conjectures would be as well). "The ABC conjecture is the most important unsolved problem in Diophantine analysis... It is more than utilitarian; to mathematicians it is also a thing of beauty. Seeing so many Diophantine problems unexpectedly encapsulated into a single equation drives home the feeling that all the sub disciplines of mathematics are aspects of a single underlying unity, and that at its heart lie pure language and simple expressibility." (Goldfeld, Dorian. 1996. "Beyond the last theorem". Math Horizons. September:26-34.) Africa@homeThe goal of Africa@home is to use volunteer distributed computing to provide supercomputing resources to African universities and institutions. The first such project is MalariaControl.net, a project to determine optimal strategies for controlling the spread of Malaria. Computer models of the transmission dynamics and health effects of the disease can be used to improve planning for delivery of mosquito netting, medicines, and other resources. But such models would literally take forty years to run on the computers available to the scientists who developed them; with the help of volunteers like yourself we hope get the first results in a few months. Categories: Projects |
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