The Oldest Unsolved Problem in Math

>walks up to blackboard >multiplies 2 numbers >walks away >round of applause Frank Nelson Cole was unfathomably based

13:25 "But Euler wasn't finished yet." I think this sentence appears in most histories of mathematical concepts.

Normal people would say “There’s no way” Some other people would say “The chance is low, but never zero” And then comes the mathematician: “The chance is never zero, but how low is it?”

I'd like to thank you for making me aware of GIMPS. I'm donating some of my cpu power overnight now.

When Euler says "it's most difficult", it's gotta be impossible.

4:03 "Euclid was actually thinking along similar lines" Euclid: calculates perfect numbers with actual lines

i'm becoming more respectful to my teachers, when i realize i can now understand and enjoy these kind of videos.. even 15 years later after the school..

Me: > starts watching video > gets engrossed > gets the motivation to find the odd perfect number > forgets what a perfect number is > refuses to elaborate > leaves

Watching a math related video strictly out of curiosity and having your general math professor Bill Dunham from 25 years ago pop up is a surprise…and finding out he’s now a well respected mathematics historian and not just some guy who endlessly suffered non-math students struggles with train problems is absolutely fantastic. Go Mules!

Your videos are always so crisp, clean, and educational

I'm an English major, and I just subscribed to Veritasium because I enjoyed this so much. Thank you! I can't wait to chase down every last video!

There is something so bizarre about Euclid and Euler having a collaboration. If the history of mathematics was a book of fiction, I would call this a fan service 😂

Not me watching thinking I’m gonna try to solve this while eating hot cheetos

This channel is absolutely THE BEST science channel. Not only on YT but in general. I'm a primary school teacher from Poland and the amount of facts and curiosities I get from here and transfer into teaching physics, chemistry and even English is astonishing. Thank you.

I had a fun watch, definitely amazing to think about! I've been fascinated with numbers and problems since grade school and has been thinking about problems with patterns like this ever since. Not that I am any good at it nor am I sure when trying to come up with formulas based on these patterns. And sometimes, I tend to simplify these kind of problems based on what they look at. With that, I also think there is no odd perfect number for the fact that these perfect numbers we currently have all have the factor "2" which obviously makes it divisible by 2.

Finding perfect numbers is one of the first algorithm assignments you get in a computer Science degree. I never knew it was such an old idea.

I have a research project due tomorrow and I was really looking for something distracting. My procrastination thanks you.

Congrats on making such a topic so enjoyable and interesting throughout the whole video. Wow!

28 years later you single handedly taught me how formulas are made!!!!

They lowkey tricked me with the outro at 16:25 I was so disappointed for a second 😂