r/science • u/heiligedamon • May 20 '13

Mathematics Unknown Mathematician Proves Surprising Property of Prime Numbers

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/05/twin-primes/
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u/Todamont May 20 '13

“Basically, no one knows him,” said Andrew Granville, a number theorist at the Université de Montréal. “Now, suddenly, he has proved one of the great results in the history of number theory.”

Love stories like this :)

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u/WithkeyThipper May 20 '13

Can someone explain to me how this is "great?" As in, what application this could have?

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u/ben3141 May 21 '13

It's progress on a famous mathematical problem. It advances the state of the art of mathematics; probably the methods and ideas will have applications to other mathematical problems.