The Math Problem With a $1 Million Prize for Solving

Video written by Ben Doyle

[jms]

Fun Fact: The man who solved the Poincaré Conjecture, Grigori Jakowlewitsch Perelman, rejected the prize money and told the congratulatory committee to get lost because he just wanted to be left alone.

[pvic]

me a computer science graduate: ah yes, my nightmares have returned

[Kari.F.]

Yay, I'm about to become one million $ richer. I remember something about Paul having 10 apples and giving three of them to Mike, so I'll just take it from there and start working on this. Easy peasy!

[imperialpilot]

Just give me 3 flintstone gummies, I'll handle them.

[RodrigoBadin]

The thing is: If you had the formula you would earn way more money by solving the problems selling your services to solve rather than selling the formula for a million USD.

[yonatanbeer]

To be clear, even if we have a polynomial time algorithm which solves NP problems, it could still in practice be unhelpful, e.g. it could have constants greater than a googleplex or whatever and only be efficient for inconveniently large inputs.

[stardestroyer]

> One of them has gotten significantly more attention and more failed attempts than the rest.

*The Riemann Hypothesis would like to know your location*

[harrypotter]

Fun fact: The man who solved the first Millennium Prize Problem turned down the $1, 000, 000 as well as the award, and later a Fields Medal. He then quit his job and went into seclusion. When approached by a writer in 2012, he stated “You are disturbing me. I am picking mushrooms.”

[Yamezzzz]

A $3 million muffin is the exact opposite of a "very convoluted money laundering scheme".

In fact it might be the least convoluted money laundering scheme of all time.

[pauraque]

Fedex: thx for solving the hardest problem in the world




Me: np

[hashxz]

Why do I feel like half as interesting son will make a video in 2069 titled "why did they 2020 Olympics happen in 2021"

[thesnippa_x_killa]

I have a feeling that Sam wants us to solve this, so he can claim the money.

[marsgal]

I too assumed this would be about the Riemann Hypothesis. As a long-time computer nerd techie type I've followed P=NP for a long time.

[secondfinance]

Next video on Wendover Productions:
The Logistics of Why You Should’ve Paid Attention in Math Class

[PrestonFlanders]

“One of them has gotten significantly more attention and failed attempts to solve it than the rest — P vs NP”

*Riemann: Hold my hypothesis*

[so-ares]

It would make more sense if the promo code "half" gave 50% off...

[boium.]

0:56 Oh boy, I'm a math student and I seriously tought that when you said one has gotten more attention than the rest, that you were going to talk about the Riemann Hypothesis. Would have loved an episode about that but P vs. NP is also a good one.

[zunaidparker]

After the intro I thought for SURE we'd be talking about the Riemann Hypothesis. Not sure if P=NP is more studied than RH.

[SanderDoesThings]

The math problem my mom expects me to solve after watching the 3 minute video

[calvinbouroughproductions]

The "Hey, you want to get rich quick" with the guy standing there with his finger at the beginning sounded like an advertisement for Honey.