{"id":97957,"date":"2019-10-29T14:03:29","date_gmt":"2019-10-29T21:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/mathematicians-solve-twin-prime-conjecture-in-an-alternate-universe"},"modified":"2019-10-29T14:03:29","modified_gmt":"2019-10-29T21:03:29","slug":"mathematicians-solve-twin-prime-conjecture-in-an-alternate-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/mathematicians-solve-twin-prime-conjecture-in-an-alternate-universe","title":{"rendered":"Mathematicians Solve \u2018Twin Prime Conjecture\u2019 \u2014 In an Alternate Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/mathematicians-solve-twin-prime-conjecture-in-an-alternate-universe2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Mathematicians have uncovered a big new piece of evidence for one of the most famous unproven ideas in mathematics, known as the twin prime conjecture. But the route they took to finding that evidence probably won\u2019t help <a href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/46254-proof-theorem-axiom.html\">prove<\/a> the twin prime conjecture itself.<\/p>\n<p>The twin prime conjecture is all about how and when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/34526-prime-numbers.html\">prime numbers<\/a> \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/42619-real-numbers.html\">numbers<\/a> that are divisible only by themselves and 1 \u2014 appear on the number line. \u201cTwin primes\u201d are primes that are two steps apart from each other on that line: 3 and 5, 5 and 7, 29 and 31, 137 and 139, and so on. The twin prime conjecture states that there are infinitely many twin primes, and that you\u2019ll keep encountering them no matter how far down the number line you go. It also states that there are infinitely many prime pairs with every other possible gap between them (prime pairs that are four steps apart, eight steps apart, 200,000 steps apart, etc.). Mathematicians are pretty sure this is true. It sure seems like it\u2019s true. And if it weren\u2019t true, it would mean that prime numbers aren\u2019t as random as everyone thought, which would mess up lots of ideas about how numbers work in general. But no one\u2019s ever been able to prove it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related:<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/65577-riemann-hypothesis-big-step-math.html\"><strong> Mathematicians Edge Closer to Solving a \u2018Million Dollar\u2019 Math Problem<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mathematicians have uncovered a big new piece of evidence for one of the most famous unproven ideas in mathematics, known as the twin prime conjecture. But the route they took to finding that evidence probably won\u2019t help prove the twin prime conjecture itself. The twin prime conjecture is all about how and when prime numbers [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2229],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mathematics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97957\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}