science · 07 July 1742 · 282 years ago
In 1742, the Russian mathematician Christian Goldbach dated a letter to Leonhard Euler in which he presented his famous conjecture. Stated in modern terms, Goldberg's conjecture proposes that “Every even natural number greater than 2 is equal to the sum of two prime numbers.” It has been checked by computer for vast numbers - up to at least 4 x 1014 - but still remains unproved. Goldbach also studied infinite sums, the theory of curves and the theory of equations.
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