The Most Amazing Mathematical Discoveries Made by Amateurs

Explore the fascinating world of amateur mathematicians and their groundbreaking discoveries-from superpermutations on 4chan to Ramanujan’s genius. Dive into math as a hobby, where imagination is your only tool!
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[@KravenMoorehead674]

Imagine being so good at math that the “experts” don’t take you seriously because they’re not smart enough to understand your work.

[@sailinbob11]

@@KravenMoorehead674 not something I worry about. Thankfully I can balance my, well... we don't have checkbooks anymore or I don't anyway, my account, and read a tape measure. I did take calculus in college. My professor said I didn't pass. I escaped... It being a Southern military college, I counted it a success. Ooooo Rah !

[@Bob-qk2zg]

It happens in all fields.

[@phyrhfbr1819]

I have a similar issue, but with language and communication 😑 I always remind "them" that just because they are unable to comprehend something does not signify its invalidity 🤔

[@cam5816]

He’s just like me fr 🥹

[@codyaragon93]

*maths

[@polyaddict]

Ramanujan : ❌️ Ram a jam : ✅️

[@SteveKimbo]

No mention of Terence Howard and his discovery that 1x1=2? 😂

[@ThatWriterKevin]

I've covered that over on Brain Blaze. I figured this script should be reserved for actual discoveries

[@veridico84]

​@@ThatWriterKevinThe content you write is fantastic, thank you Kevin.

[@ThatWriterKevin]

@@veridico84 Why thank you!

[@jorgelotr3752]

That discovery needs a total rewriting of maths, starting from the definition of "times" (and following with the definition of "square root").

[@psymar]

also a different crank I saw once who insisted that (-1)² = -(1²) = -1

[@AvoidTheCadaver]

It's the superpermutation of pronunciations of Ramanujen

[@ashedarke]

I'm missing what Simon is saying because I'm laughing too much 🤣

[@mikesum32]

and Egan

[@mikesum32]

and tiling

[@catherine_404]

Poor Ramanajan. Well, obviously, not only him, but his story is so obviously mishandled but the state, colleges, scientific and general society. Imagine if he got the attention, the education (counselling?) he deserved, and lived to his eighties or longer. I wish!

[@olanmills64]

He does seem to get a lot of attention though? I mean for advanced math or math history I feel like he gets a lot of attention. I don't think learning about him in grade school is really that useful.

[@Leyrann]

He's probably in the top five most famous mathematicians these days.

[@patrik5123]

Ever read the history of Faraday? Now that's a fucking heart breaker. Faraday accomplished a lot though so not a fair comparison I suppose.

[@logannosleep5]

​​@@olanmills64and what good does that do anyone once they are dead? As of right now, as a musician, I can say without a doubt I would LOVE for all my works/songs/poems/instruments to go away the moment I do.... didn't appreciate me, or my works when I was alive, don't dare do it when I die...

[@2Namia]

For a minute there, I thought Simon was wearing shorts😂

[@joeloedeman5160]

Or forgot his pants!

[@O8WRx]

I almost left this same comment. 😂😂 I was like... Alright then. Lol

[@ashedarke]

Not only that but the darker lines were from sort of fishnet stockings.

[@2Namia]

@@ashedarke 🤣🤣

[@karenshadle365]

Imagine being so good at math that when your teacher says " Show your work", that you're unable to do so. You can only say " I looked at the problem and just knew the answer." This doesn't go over really well in school. This was my brother. But of course he was always able to pass his tests with flying colors. And the SAT tests didn't require work to be shown, so A-OK. He got his scholarships. Strangely, he's kind of a dolt in anything else but math, but I think it's because of his lack of interest in other subjects.

[@BrAndroidB]

That hits too close to home. Acing math tests but still receiving a 'B' or 'C' grade due to not showing work (and not being able to show work when asked). Then, as a result, being accused of cheating. Or, better yet, finishing said tests - LONG before anyone else in class - with every single correct answer, so that it disproves any cheating accusations. But STILL not receiving an 'A'... it's frustrating. I thought I was the only one to ever experience something like that. I hope your brother is doing well.

[@olanmills64]

Being able to show your work is important for understanding though. Being able to do it intuitively in your head is a useful skill in everyday life like when you're dealing with finances and shopping and stuff, or even when absorbing stuff from the news. However, in scientific and academic fields in the professional world, computers can do lots of the stuff that's been figured out, but if you're designing/engineering a system, coming up with a testing plan, being able to show how and why your math is leading to the decisions you're making is important so that it can be critiqued and alternatives can be considered, not to mention just be be able to verify what you're claiming

[@Leyrann]

Had that in high school. Most of my math education (in particular in later years) was focused on getting me to properly note down all steps, which I did actually get very good at eventually, and good thing too, because we _were_ graded on the process as well as the answer. To the point where if you were to write down all correct answers but nothing that got you there, you'd get a failing grade. By the end of high school I could pretty much perfectly do precisely one computation to every single component of an equation, meaning I didn't have to use any extra lines in order to solve it, but also didn't create ambiguity by doing multiple steps in one go. I actually really liked the precision and clarity of that, which I guess might be an autism thing.

[@karenshadle365]

@@BrAndroidB I sent you a big long reply but it disappeared. Who knows why? Yes he does have a very successful life. He worked as an engineer at Boeing for over 40 years. Good thing he retired before the big problems started there.

[@karenshadle365]

@@olanmills64 Pretty sure that by the time my brother graduated from Stanford with his master's degree in Engineering he was able to show his work successfully. Heh heh.

[@dekeltal]

Now we have to calculate the length of the superpermutation of all the different ways Simon succeeded to pronounce "Ramanujan" 🤣🤣

[@dhaxiskhadhammer]

I had to replay Simon saying Haruhi Suzumiya because my ears didn't believe that was actually what he'd said.

[@jorgelotr3752]

Well, technically he didn't say that. I don't even know how to write an approximation of what he said. What left me in disbelief in that entry was Haruhi being the background of the section's title.

[@radonato]

"Tilling the plane"?! Oh my, Simon.

[@jorgelotr3752]

The best way to get those square roots going!

[@breakbeatkid]

WOAH BLACK BETTY RAMAJAM

[@nayman2801]

He used like 7 pronunciations, none of which are correct lol

[@johnkidby7948]

Said it so confidently I started to wonder if I was the one who had it wrong.🤣

[@olanmills64]

Simon with his own super permutation discovery by saying Ramanujan's name every which way except the correct way 😅 And FermaTT 😭

[@jays5671]

Sometimes, on his non-commentary channels like this, Simon says things so matter of fact and confident that I forget he's just reading a script by one of his lovely writers, and actually has no clue what he's talking about most of the time. Then I hear him confuse tiling with tilling (and only half the time) and I remember 😂

[@billhutchinson6318]

I get this with Morgan Freeman

[@SerGio-xs9ss]

Reading the script too fast !

[@BrAndroidB]

During undergrad I created two formulas that were superior to existing solutions. For the first formula (calculating the max area when there are both fixed and variable sections of perimeter) the professor thought it was cool, taught it to the class, and we left it there. The second formula (solving a complex econometrics queueing problem) had a very different outcome. After demonstrating its functionality, and *vast* superiority over the textbook method, the professor outright called me a liar in class. She admitted she had never seen anything like my method before, but said there's no way I created it and I should be ashamed because I must have plagiarized someone else's work. ANYWAYS, I'm not sure what to do with any of this information. But it feels nice to share.

[@jorgelotr3752]

Write two papers and send them to a journal.

[@scepticalchymist]

Try to publish the results under your name in a decent journal and get the credit you deserve.

[@Makem12]

Simon hates Anime so much, that he can't even correctly pronounce titles of Anime. He just drops the occasional syllable and calls it good enough.

[@baahcusegamer4530]

lol, Haruhi is still spreading happiness and mayhem around the world after all these years.

[@kelm102]

Never in a million years did I think I'd see Haruhi Suzumiya show up in a Simon Whistler video of any sort.

[@danielgay1772]

can you imagine if Simon had the pill from limitless that allowed you to remember and use all information you have ever heard or learned

[@danielgay1772]

yo he would be a knowledge god

[@catherine_404]

Forgetting is a very important part of memory. You can train to have a better memory, but, you know, ain't anybody got time for that. I expect memory pills for healthy people would be in some way horrible if not immediately then in the long run. Just for the reason that any and all "enhancement" drugs, as far as I know, harm their users. Just a thought.

[@notreallydavid]

RamANujan, for God's sake. He's not an obscure figure. (Ah, you got it later on - good. Earlier bits not reshot, though.)

[@notreallydavid]

GH Hardy, for fuck's sake!

[@keithwalmsley1830]

He would be the Master of the Universe!! 😇

[@FlesHBoX]

gaaah.... Ramajan???? Ramajan??????? It's RamaNUjan

[@FlesHBoX]

OH god, and it just keeps getting worse... lol

[@FlesHBoX]

Correct pronunciation is Ra-MAH-nujen (though it seems a popular pronunciation among brits is Ra-mah-NU-jen)

[@adzaaahhh]

I was thinking exactly the same thing... I love Simon's shows and presentation style, but this really grated on my ears when he repeatedly mispronounced the mane so many times.

[@codedinfortran]

As a recreational would-be mathematician (with a lifelong fascination in tessellation) I found this episode quite wonderful!

[@ThatWriterKevin]

Glad you enjoyed!

[@coconyt3623]

"1 minute ago" holy hell! Big ups Simon & Co, love you guys! Educating random mofos more, faster and better than most educational institutions.

[@Hythe01]

Reminds me of the time one of my classmates discovered a new theorem (subsequently named after him) in our A-level maths class… made me question whether I was in the right maths set, to be honest!

[@BrAndroidB]

Do you know how he went about getting that recognition? I'm guessing the teacher helped? I created two. The first time, that professor said "cool", and that was all. The second time, the (different) professor called me a liar and scolded me in front of the class - claiming that I must have plagiarized it. I've always wondered how I should have handled those situations. It would've been cool to get recognition.

[@cam5816]

Though nice for a while, life becomes meaningless with nothing left to surprise or entice you, especially as the bad memories weigh in your mind so much more than the good ones.

[@Hythe01]

@@BrAndroidB yes, the teacher and maths department helped with recognition and the school gave him an award

[@maranathaschraag5757]

4chan - where people go to lose iq points...or gain mathematical knowledge.... i wonder if that anon poster is actually some brilliant mathematician who's so embarrassed to be an anime fan that they don't want their proof to go public under their own name.

[@mikeyoung9810]

sorry I'm going to comment on something other than flooding the host with compliments. As a young man I went into college algebra after not loving high school math (which was just doing 3 hours a problems a night for homework so it does lead to a dislike of math). Enter college and I find a teacher who loved what he did and soon I loved math (even thought of a new theorm in class which he named for me but no idea what it was now). That makes all the difference. US schools are like this where the better teachers showing up in college and the lessers in highschool. this didn't help me though when a calculus course featured a korean teacher that I couldn't understand a word he said and a book full of problems with no explanations. Thus, my short love of math ended. But I still love numbers as ignorant as I am.

[@podpolia]

There are some great teachers at the high school level too, though they may be harder to find - at the college level you tend to be teaching more motivated students. Either way, you're right - having a good teacher can open whole new worlds to you, even if they're not worlds you're destined to explore.

[@cam5816]

Crazy how much money we have to spend for college, increasing every damn year, just for the actual teacher to not even come to their own class, having a foreign TA teach that no one can understand, and using pre-made homework, tests, and quizzes from the internet.

[@shantanusapru]

This video probably will get the Guinness Book of World Records entry for the largest number of (incorrect) permutations of pronunciation of 'Ramanujan'🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@ashedarke]

Kevin, did you include Ramanujan's name so many times on purpose? If so you might be my hero.

[@rosiefay7283]

Another example: Dave Smith's discovery of two shapes, the "hat" and "turtle", each of which is an aperiodic monotile. That is, copies of it can tile the plane, but it cannot tile the plane in a regular way. Smith's discovery was announced in March 2023. Since about 1960, mathematicians have considered the question of how few shapes there can be in an aperiodic tile-set, and, in particular, if the number can be reduced to 1.

[@Egofever]

Ramajan!?

[@MoiraMcGill]

You never know what an amateur or average person will think up. For instance, as a child I had noticed the influence gravity had on our perception of time, long before learning about it formally. Even an untrained mind can sometimes gleam nuggets of knowledge

[@Iowa599]

I involuntarily did a doubletake the first time your flesh-tone pants were shown 😅

[@mohammedsaysrashid3587]

Wonderful introduction thanks

[@gerardomalazdrewicz7514]

How about George Dantzig being late for class, seeing two problems on the board, missed they were unsolved problems (due to being late), and proceed to solve them?

[@mxula7172]

ramajan? tilling the plane? this happens when you have like a billion youtube channels and just spam content.

[@davidpotash7256]

I’ll bet you knew everything here.

[@codyaragon93]

Happy to at least understand the geometry part. 🎉

[@keithmichael112]

They could probably solve all remaining outstanding math problems by somehow relating it to an old anime and posting it on a forum

[@eggsngritstn]

Pedantic pronunciation comment: Euler is pronounced OY-lur, and Fermat is pronounced FAIR-mah.

[@ianstopher9111]

And let's not get started on Ramanujan.

[@Drofthechalice]

Half expected Simon to start singing Black Betty when pronouncing Srinivas last name.

[@ObiWanCannabi]

time dilation has always been a fascination of mine, i recently figured out a way of mapping general relativity, and it is all flat, yet curved, I separated the dimension of space and time, mapping 3D space in the dimension of time, you need to use the same logic on the earth as science has done on the observable bubble, turn it into a light cone, take its radius as the cones height and the circumference as the diameter of your tops circle, this sets your baseline gravitational cone, extend the lines to infinity and you should be able to plot any circular orbit on this as a straight line and see how its time in space trades for a position in time. At rest an object is on the surface, but say there was no atmosphere and you fire a bullet on the horizon at orbital velocity, you have traded its rest point in space for an orbital point in time, as you add more speed its path across the line doesnt increase, the line gets longer and it is forced further outwards so its distance line stays in between the cone of causality... if you do not reach orbital speed then the bullet falls through the sliced layers of time until it is on the correct orbit in space, but in reality its until it is back at rest with the surface.. without collision it would find its place in orbit, so you arent feeling gravity, time is trying its best to pull you down onto the correct line in spacetime for your speed in it.. In a universe where time and space dilate so easy this is the only true constant.. an orbit will always take the same time, you always travel the same speed across the line, no matter how dilated things were, a year always seems like a year, but 1 second now is like 13 billion years happening in a second.. 13 billion years ago.. The closer you get to a black hole the more time dilates to the outside observer watching the show play out but inside things tick infinitely faster, their journey through space becomes more of a journey through time.. just like when you move from orbital lines.. you trade energy from your position in space for your position in time.. If we could go faster than the speed of light time would dilate with us, space and time in its reference frame act and feel the same, but outside it would look like space was bending and warping Gravity is an illusion of the warping of spacetime, tick rates run at the same speed around a mass in an orbital path, if this path is straight in the dimension of time, then it kind of says its flat and straight in spacetime.. 4d spacetime looks spherical and curved, but in 3d space, gravity isnt a thing.. the 4th dimension of time is what curves space.. 3D space and 4D spacetime confuse the shit out of people who are only accustomed to existing on a 2D flat surface.. with light giving confirmation bias, but at a certain point you cant use a laser to measure somethings straightness or flatness in 4D spacetime, as the laser doesnt bend with the universe in quite the same way, things with mass would follow orbits, staying flat and parallel to the surface, even if it curves with the horizon that horizon curved so it always stays flat, a bar on a bridge 99% around the earth should be ale to roll without atoms in its shape needing to deform or dislocate, spacetime did all the dislocating if the bridge stayed parallel to the ocean and if its ticks were all straight in spacetime, then it is flat in both space and time.. the bar would look like it flexed and dislocates, but it doesnt need to, spacetime is the thing bending.. not the bar.. the bar just highlights the curving, same as the planet does.. light is not only massless, its speed makes it falling into orbit impossible, but weirdly if light did have just a little bit of mass, some would get caught in orbit and you would be able to see past the curve of the horizon, seeing from LA to Paris we might all be convinced things were a lot flatter out here.. If you flatten out the dimension of time you can see gravity as the same straight lines as light, in one weird perspective its a valuable map, it could show what parts of the universe are the oldest, you could see the dilation of space and time, everywhere a second has existed another part of the universe experienced 4.. it seems to me like its been expanding for 13 billion years squared or cubed.. Science is convinced space and time are expanding, but you could put it inside a black hole, according to the cones there is a point of space at the centre of mass where the planets mass is pulling you out in equal opposite directions, the length of your orbital line at that depth would be how it would feel, relative to the surface at 1G, there is an infinitely small line at the core representing that.. the surface is where you feel the most mass blow you, you have higher gravity on mountains and lower on the ocean floor, the flerf map is a good model for a slice of the earth at ground level it maps gravity nicely.. newtonian gravity wells end here, einsteins math shows that as you go into the planet there is a point in spacetime that exists at the same dilation as if the planet wasnt even there.. of course the density and pressure down there is also something else... if you flattened things out for density, i wonder if my cone shape becomes cubic or cylindrical... if it does then if you cored a hole through a globe and mapped it on my map, id bet it shows that its not only a curved line through space and time its not even the shortest any longer.. but anyway I imagine this point could exist inside a black hole, it looks hot and small and compressed to an outside observer but inside is a tiny flat, spherical area of spacetime.. inside it seems cool to the observer, and as the black hole evaporates it cools and looks like expansion, its at a steady rate tho it looked like rapid expansion earlier in time, its just an illusion of a logarithmic curve propagating in 4d space, to an inside observer an expanding or cooling universe would look exactly the same when time dilates as things change either way.. in 4D spacetime you need 1 line of causality going out from the sun to represent the start and stop point to an orbit, if you mark that arbitrary straight line out from the sun it has one line of continuity, in a 3d world flattened out to a cone you need 2, in 2D space on a map you will see you need 4, if you look at a polar orbit each time the line changes direction is where causality bumps it from this perspective, it looks like it goes up, then left, then down then right, or vice versa, but its always doing that 360 degree journey in spacetime in 1D space you need 8 lines of causality, so it does suggest in 5D you need 0.5 lines or maybe none... but the 3D world around us is conical, not spherical. it works so nicely, flattening out those straight line orbits in space you see how it all works, your resting point when you arent moving is trying to pull you into your orbit as it should be in spacetime, so you feel gravity, if you was at the centre of the earth any mass you tossed would fly up, not down as your orbital velocity at that point in curved spacetime its much shorter of an orbit.. the cone is gravitational potential map of local spacetime, you could do this for any large body, just using its radius and circumference, even the observable universe Time travel should be as easy as speeding up or slowing down your motion in the 4th dimension, you should fall back to your relative point in space for your speed in it, if you could stop your motion and pause your dilation, winding back the universes clocks, it should all converge as a singularity in 13 billion odd years, but travelling with the wave, your dilation continues and the wave always seems 13 billion years in time.. an outside observer witnessing it would see you grow in the night sky until you were larger than the observable universe, and red shifted to oblivion. Scale and perspective seem to be everything.. if you tweak C the same math predicting the evaporation of a puddle of water predicts the decay of uranium, we use water as a dynamical replacement for air at supersonic speeds, changing the tick rate of the universe changes everything.. its all just vibrating energy fields, bound by similar rules on different scales. Change your perspective so a hydrogen atom is as big as a star and its lightwaves blue shift as you shrink, its IR now visible, the outside universe now red shifted to your perspective, could you tell reality now, from the void of space, it would be gravitationally flat on those scales across the observable universe,, oxygen too big to breathe, fundamental forces tugging on you in all directions, you might feel weightless apart from the mass of the thing that looks like a star

[@zaharacreative]

Simon, you would be doing a large number of your viewers a huge favor if you spoke just a bit slower with the realization that you are delivering educational content and not just telling a trivial story. It takes a moment to have this kind of information sink in for the purpose of it to be retainable and useful. Also remember, you are viewed globally and the majority of your viewers don't have English as their first language.

[@xeeda2259]

0.75x speed if its an issue. I have to speed up a lot of people that talk slow on YT

[@1ChuckO]

​@xeeda2259 great point and I do the same because a lot of people talk way too slow. Simon seems to be just right for myself.

[@michaelsmith4904]

(watching at 2x)

[@jingalls9142]

Ramanajan even made equations that apply to fields of study that hadnt been invented yet. Like modern computing or quantum mechanics. He also taught himself alot of things independently of his contemporaries. I would love to have a year long conversation with that man....i would be undoubtedly lost but i digress itd be something to witness.

[@Nick-v7b3l]

I needed tutors to get through long division and flunked algebra so bad i had to graduate high school with remedial math.

[@StruggleButtons]

What’s crazy to think about are those geniuses, like Ramanujan, who are just lost to history for one reason or another.

[@blythewarland5459]

Love it, your right my brain is too small for that

[@Indyofthedead]

If this happens in maths, this likely would happen everywhere else in the sciences, but the barriers for entry are either way too high for them to ever contribute, or their circumstances keep them from being able to pursue the field. There's a reason why famous scientists of the past were all rich noblemen.

[@Tara_Li]

Missed the recent discovery by an amateur of an a periodic mono tile.

[@ThatWriterKevin]

I'm a big fan of Numberphile and saw Ayliean MacDonald's video on it over there, but I went with the tiling the plane discovery that I felt would be easier to understand. Normally I'd have tried to make a brief mention of the aperiodic monotile at the end of that section, but I was already up against the upper limit for script length for this channel

[@JohnDoe-ti2np]

@@ThatWriterKevin This was a very nice episode! There is enough material for a second video on this topic, should there be interest in that. There's been lots of publicity about the recent discovery of the aperiodic monotile, but people are much less aware of Joan Taylor (as in the Socolar-Taylor monotile) and Robert Ammann. Other easy-to-understand discoveries include James Davis's counterexample to Conway's "Climb to a Prime" conjecture and Aubrey de Grey's work on the chromatic number of the plane.

[@pyroicarus1203]

How about the Keeler’s theorem from Futurama S6E10 "The Prisoner of Benda"?

[@johnlarson505]

If someone goes into the professional sports without going to college, they are still considered a professional athlete. Ramanujan was a professional mathematician.

[@migmit]

Actually, we don't really know if Fermat wrote those words on the margins of a book. The book itself was lost, and all we have is Fermat's son saying this in his father's biography. There is no confirmation. What is more convincing than just “all those smart people couldn't get it, so Fermat obviously couldn't either” is that there was a common mistake, made by many professional mathematicians, offering their own proofs of that theorem. The mistake is subtle, and it would be easy for Fermat to make it as well.

[@theawesomeman9821]

These mathematicians should be referred to as brilliant not amateur

[@ThatWriterKevin]

Did anything in the script lead you to believe we felt they were anything less than brilliant?

[@thumpyloudfoot864]

Getting high on Meth 👎 Getting high on Math👍

[@ethanwalshe766]

No way my guy said “tilling the plane” this ain’t a field

[@ZER0--]

Fermat's Last Theorem was not a theorem, it was a conjecture.

[@Michael75579]

I've always assumed that Fermat had one of the many subtly-flawed proofs that have been discovered over the years. It's possible that there's a simple proof that everyone else has missed, but I'd say it's extremely unlikely. He definitely didn't have Andrew Wiles' proof, which runs to many pages and uses areas of mathematics that weren't discovered until long after Fermat's death.

[@Crioten]

I'm glad that my kid starfish is loving maths

[@Cocoa_Kalypso]

The way my face scrunched up with each "Haruhi" 😖.... it's worse than Michael B Jordan saying "Naruto"

[@raybieze]

Was the intent to pronounce Ramanujan’s name differently every time you say it? He was not an amateur tho.

[@notreallydavid]

4chan not just a Burger King toilet with shit on the walls, then.

[@car0lm1k3]

Greg Egan is the hardest hard sci-fi writer. my brain is definitely too small.

[@ewingtaylor5487]

Wonder - Has any mathematical relationship ever been actually been invented, or are they already out there - set by the nature and laws of the Universe, waiting to be discovered ?

[@ThatWriterKevin]

I think I've mentioned it in a script on this channel before, but that debate's been going on for thousands of years.

[@Novastar.SaberCombat]

As long as it gets marketed.

[@aadeyemi5767]

Ramanujan was not an amateur

[@samarthur1847]

I hope that is the same Martin Gardner who wrote “Did Adam and Eve have navels “ and contributed to the “Sceptical Enquirer” 😊

[@willisengelbrecht7731]

They recently discovered a tile that can fill a plane and also never have a repeating pattern

[@jamesleatherwood5125]

I know Ramamnajan"s plight. im an ideas guy, not a maths guy. no one listens to any of my ideas.....

[@ianstopher9111]

One other example I would have added: Heegner and the proof that the known numbers for Class 1 for quadratic imaginary number fields are complete. Ignored until after his death, but essentially correct.

[@anonymustly7818]

Yeah, another I didn't understand a word of. No surprise since standard math classes were eliminated from my curriculum in 6th grade to enter me into LAUSD experimental computer classes eventually leading to a 30 year career in IT.

[@silver6054]

Fermat wasn't always correct His conjecture on 2^2^n +1 being prime was disproved (100 years later, but still disproved)

[@ianstopher9111]

Neither was Euler: his sum of powers conjecture was disproven by Lander and Parkin in 1966.

[@silver6054]

@@ianstopher9111 RIght, but the video said Fermat was always right in his conjectures. Don't think he said that about Euler

[@ianstopher9111]

@@silver6054 I could not find the statement in the section where it was claimed Fermat was always right, but I will accept your point.

[@silver6054]

@@ianstopher9111 Around 12:30 "inevitably turned out to be true".....

[@patinsley]

2mins in and my brain has flat lined

[@ThatWriterKevin]

Sorry! I try to make it consumable, but it can be really tough with math

[@protocol6]

How did you manage to lose a whole syllable from Ramanujan's name? I know the Indian pronunciation puts a little less stress on it than the usual English pronunciation but dropping it entirely is a bit much. Edit: Oh, you do get it (or at least closer) a few times.

[@glennmorrow2755]

Like this one. Good stuff.

[@EyeofHorus33]

"Superpermeatations" .... AKA making stuff up to fit your model.

[@penguinista]

If 'mathematics' should be shortened to 'maths' then 'economics' should be shortened to 'econs' and 'obstetrics' should be shortened to 'OBS'.

[@dlevi67]

The last one certainly is (in Britain at least). Whether that's the first or second 's' in the word remains an open question (as it does in physics = phys).

[@arg1051]

You don't need an "enormous brain." You just have to take the first step, which is to start learning. I'm not smart at all, lol, but I love math, and I do it everyday as much as I can. I started with Martin Gardner puzzles when I was in middle school, and eventually made it through grad school in math just solving puzzle after puzzle it feels like to me. As he mentions, you don't need anything more than paper and pencil to begin, but to get an idea of where to begin you can start with some Martin Gardner puzzles or there's a book by Richard Courant, "What is mathematics?" that's a good place to start as well. The late great V. I. Arnold once said that mathematics is the least expensive of all the sciences, you don't need a million dollars, you just need some paper. Which reminds me, V. I. Arnold has a good book, "Lectures and Problems: A Gift to Young Mathematicians" that only requires up to high school math to work through, but the problems in it can keep you occupied the rest of your life.

[@mikes2622]

Why do people from the UK say "maths"?

[@Dexy83]

Great question!

[@ThatWriterKevin]

Because it's short for mathematics. The word is plural so they feel the shortened word should also be plural. I refuse to write "maths" in a script, but I can't stop Simon from being British.

[@drzander3378]

‘Mathematics’ is a plural noun. When you abbreviate plural nouns, the terminal ‘s’ is retained. That’s true in both English and American English. So the English ‘maths’ is correct and the American English ‘math’ isn’t. What requires explanation is why across the English-speaking world ‘mathematics’ is treated as singular. It should be ‘mathematics are hard’, not ‘mathematics is hard’. One could argue that it’s an ellipsis for ‘the subject of mathematics’ and therefore singular but that’s grasping at straws.

[@mikes2622]

@ThatWriterKevin According to Google; Mathematics is singular, even though it ends in the letter "s". The "s" in mathematics does not indicate plurality, but rather has a different meaning. Mathematics is a singular noun that describes a field of study, not many things. It is a mass noun that can be defined as both a broad type of inquiry and a bundle of countable disciplines

[@millamulisha]

I’m sending this to all my Indian mathematician friends. 😂

[@kaeverens]

please straighten those books on the bookshelf! as an amateur bookbinder, I'm getting stressed thinking of the damage you're doing to the spines!

[@Ken-rq9xr]

Twelve years old solved a three thousand years old math problem. Trisect angel with strait edge and compass. Solved it but. Being a kid with no budget put x on piece paper giving me four tries. My paper was sent to university of Toronto mathematics section for confirmation. It worked yes but only with angles that were multiples of thirty degrees. Closer than anyone else in there Thousand years I should get an honorable mention somewhere.😮

[@Robbiebert14]

Lol "Ramajan"

[@SkyForgeVideos]

Tilling?

[@justinholt1247]

Good beard cut. 0:59

[@Magdalena8008s]

There was two 16 or so year old girls in high school that did something recently regarding Pythagoran Theorem. KZbin it and youll see videos with them.

[@ericbaysinger314]

I always have to play his videos at 75% speed.

[@patrik5123]

How many ways can he mispronounce Ramanujan though? 😀

[@EyeofHorus33]

Editors on holiday

[@Caelris]

Did he just pronounce "Tiling" as "Tilling"?

[@michaelmclaughlin5511]

Interesting stuff But... what does knowing these mathematical questions answer achieve? No disrespect meant just wondering.....

[@bmstylee]

Well. In America us powerlifting types know that 45+45=135.

[@ANNOYMOUS908]

It's GH hardy not m

[@hbeachley]

As someone who is terrible at math…what?

[@ChanDawg86]

It's rama- new- jen

[@nickleezer2129]

I’ve had this question in other videos as well, are you saying “math” or “maths“?

[@nayman2801]

British people say maths

[@notreallydavid]

'Leibnizzzzz', 'Ewler', 'ArithmuhTICKER'

[@ianstopher9111]

He is generating pedant comments for more revenue.

[@Magdalena8008s]

Its simple. Theres alot of brilliant people out there. Who are good at a specific thing. Genius even. But that doesnt mean everything they say is. Or that they are experts in every feild. Theres alot of that happening these days. Who fail to grasp the fundamentals and come to wild conclusions based on ones own agenda and ignorance.

[@radonato]

Euler => "Oiler"

[@guruone]

ps. It's MATH, not MATHS :P

[@PaulVandersypen]

Maths, plural, is correct in this context, as there are multiple doctrines. For example, algebra, geometry, and calculus are each a form of math; together they are forms of maths. This applies to science and sciences, such as virology, biology, paleontology, and chemistry are each a science; together, they are sciences.

[@WahrheitMachtFrei.]

"Ramajan-a-ding-dong" "Ra-man-jan"?? "Ra-manu-jan" You must have recognised you pronounced it three different ways...but didn't bother to correct?? So disrespectful... "Tilling" the plane... do you just make noises with your mouth without regard for the meaning??

[@eeshtarr]

Ra-MA-nujan... not RA-ma-jan...

[@tkyntola]

While your articulation is splendid, I think the pronunciation needs some work. "Tilling" the plane? Surely that's not how tiling it's pronounced anywhere? I can't say for sure how Ramanujan should be pronounced, but I have gotten used to a few very different ones from yours.

[@ThatWriterKevin]

To be fair, "tiling" and "tilling" look similar and could be easily mistaken

[@aalhard]

Isn't it "mathsmaticals"😂

[@anaryllis1240]

Simon you are hurting my American brain everytime you say maths.

[@bassmit2304]

ramaNUjan