Ten Signs a Claimed Mathematical Breakthrough is Wrong

One of the 'fun' aspects of running a math blog is that you get to see Word documents containing "proofs" of unresolved problems or the existence of God or Allah. A true glimpse into madness.

When I finally prove the Riemann Hypothesis it will be presented in HTML5 and Javascript with interactive graphs.

Site is overloaded, so here is the Coral cache:<p><a href="http://www.scottaaronson.com.nyud.net/blog/?p=304" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scottaaronson.com.nyud.net&#x2F;blog&#x2F;?p=304</a><p>See also the famous Crackpot Index:<p><a href="http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;math.ucr.edu&#x2F;home&#x2F;baez&#x2F;crackpot.html</a>

This is from 2008. Could you add (2008) to the title?

I enjoyed the author&#x27;s Beijing&#x2F;Chinatown metaphor in point 10.

I probably disagree on the Tex one. I know several people with PhDs in engineering and science disciplines who have never used Tex. Several of them know enough math to at least make a reasonable stab at a few of the problems, even if they are unlikely to be successful.

Note also signs 11 and 12 in the comments[1], and the later &quot;Eight Signs A Claimed P≠NP Proof Is Wrong&quot;[2]. (OK, so there&#x27;s a bunch of overlap.)<p>[1] <a href="http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=304#comment-8957" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scottaaronson.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;?p=304#comment-8957</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=458" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scottaaronson.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;?p=458</a>

Most of the points require reading the whole paper first, isn&#x27;t it?

I wonder if there is a context in which preparing a document in TeX would be a strong indicator that you <i>don&#x27;t</i> know what you&#x27;re talking about?

Are mathematicians going to be using TeX in a hundred years? Two hundred? Five hundred? Two thousand?<p>Math is timeless. TeX may be, but it&#x27;s too soon to say. It&#x27;s a recent invention. It&#x27;s only been around for 35 years.