Quantcast
Viewing latest article 8
Browse Latest Browse All 48

Goldbach's Conjecture and Coding Length

Goldbach's conjecture is that every even integer greater or equal to four can be written as the sum of two prime numbers. (Try it: $4 = 2 + 2$, $6 = 3 + 3$, $8 = 3 + 5$, $10 = 3 + 7$, $12 = 5 + 7$...) It occurred to me that if this conjecture were true, it could be used as a way to encode even integers greater than four, and that this encoding would need to be no more efficient than the most efficient encoding, which simply enumerates the even integers $n \ge 4$. If it were more efficient, this would constitute a counterproof of the conjecture, which is widely believed to be true.

Viewing latest article 8
Browse Latest Browse All 48

Trending Articles