Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Beus Conjecture

This page is an archive of the discussion surrounding a page which has now been deleted. Please do not add to this archive. Requests for undeletion can be made at Wikipedia:votes for undeletion.

Probably original research, and it's false (181=90*2+1, neither 90 or 1 are prime). Google nor Mathworld have heard of it. Dysprosia 08:24, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
The statement above does not falsify the conjecture as 181 can also be written as 2*89+3; 89 and 3 are primes. It might however be correct that the conjecture is to insignificant to maintain inclusion in wikipedia Donar Reiskoffer 08:52, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Whoops *blush*. Anyway, it's been recently modified, which suggests it's personal research. Dysprosia 08:55, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Almost certainly original research. I went looking much deeper than Google and found only one page that might indicate origin. The computer I'm using can't read postscript files, though, so I can't verify. T.N. Shorey's Home Page lists one publication as "(with F. Beukers and R. Tijdeman) Irreducibility of polynomials and arithmetic progressions with equal products of terms, Number Theory in Progress, Volume 1 (1999), Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 11-26." [1] Note that the name of the file is beu.ps SWAdair | Talk 09:06, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Don't think this needs immediate deletion - redirect one day if required. It might well be Beukers' conjecture. I recall some related theorem of Davenport. Charles Matthews 09:38, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
it's not so insignifiant since it's related to waring's conjecture but it's more powerfull .waring can be deduct from this one (comment by 192.129.3.19, erroneously put on Template:VfD-clergy, moved by Dysprosia)
Here is a reference: [2] (down the page). It doesn't mention Beu at all. The relevant quote is as follows:

A stronger version of the weak conjecture, namely that every odd number >5 can be expressed as the sum of a prime plus twice a prime has been formulated by C. Eaton. This conjecture has been verified for n<=10^9(Corbit).

Keep for now. There's a reference in the article, suggesting that this is not original research. Until we have reason to beleive that the reference is forged, then it should be kept. There's also some confusion among editors as to whether it applies to all odd numbers above 5 or only the prime ones; this reference may know. The Mathworld link confirms that the idea is not new; it also suggests confusion over whose conjecture it is, but that's no reason for deletion, rather for checking. -- Toby Bartels 01:29, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Delete. Well, I have sketched on Talk:Beu's conjecture a proof that it's false (?). So I change my vote, anyway. Charles Matthews 11:05, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC) And that was all wrong (I misread question) - but now I'm clear, still a delete. Charles Matthews 12:53, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Kill it. No Beu, no conjecture. "Beu Prime" in google gives no relevant result. Kill it, please. Pfortuny 09:28, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Well, it's certainly a documented conjecture, but there doesn't seem to be any trace of a "Beu". The article mentions a printed 1978 reference; has anyone thought to actually look it up instead of complaining about how there's no reference in Google? There must be a lot of noteworthy ideas from 1978 which Google doesn't index. Psychonaut 14:32, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- I attempted to look up the reference, but wiley.com doesn't know about the "Encyclopedic Dictionary of Mathematics". General googling for the authors and title didn't turn it up either. User:Wikipedia benefits put in the reference with the comment "my ass". As their only non-Beu edit was vandalism, I'm inclined to think the reference is a fabrication. Wile E. Heresiarch 14:49, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Delete: probable fabrication. The conjecture does exist -- see [3] which is the origin of the "D. Corbit" ref in the Goldbach article at Mathworld -- but it doesn't appear to be associated with the name "Beu". Wile E. Heresiarch 14:49, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Delete. I changed my mind. There is something strange about this.

First of all. I can't find the reference. There is a book called "Encyclopedic dictionary of mathematics" but amazon gives Nihon Sugakkai as the editor and MIT as the publisher. Finaly I looked in the second edition of the book and couldn't find Beu.

Secondly. When I look up Beu in MathSciNet I do not find any reference with his name on it. This is possible if he isn't published, but then why would he be in the above encyclopedia? Usually MathSciNet has anybody of any fame in its database.

Thirdly. Beu is completely absent from the net. I only find it on mathworld and they refer to a discusion on sci.math (where it is original research). There is certainly no shortage of conjectures on primes otherwise on the net. Sander123 14:52, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The entry may be a typo/misunderstanding. There are enough concrete references to Beukers Conjecture Beukers's Conjecture, Beal's Conjecture, Beals Conjecture, etc., both apparently number theory/combinatorics open problems. Jorge Stolfi 02:31, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- It could be be typo, but certainly not of either beukers of beals. Beukers conjectere is on a modular relation mod a prime. And Beals conjecture is on a diophantine equation. Both have nothing to do with this brach of additive prime theory. (and no, its not a typo for the mathematician beurling either) Sander123 08:32, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Keep, if only for the curiousity factor. As mentioned before the conjecture is referenced on MathWorld under Golbach's conjecture [4] (MathWorld link). But MathWorld's source is a newsgroup thread [5] (Google link). However that thread was started by a Felice Russo with a similar conjecture. Eaton (a.k.a. Connie) merely suggested Russo drop the one from the possible values for the two input values and raise the sarting value to seven. A few posts on, Corbit to distinguish from the "Russo Conjecture" talks about verifying the "Connie Cojecture." As far as MathWorld is concerned this is sufficient to write: "namely that every odd number n > 5 can be expressed as the sum of a prime plus twice a prime has been formulated by C. Eaton. This conjecture has been verified for n < 10^9." In any event the conjecture seems to work for a large number of values and so it's worth keeping although maybe not in its own article. - Cedars 03:57, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- We don't keep articles for curiosity value. There are a *lot* of conjectures concerning primes. A lot of them look true, but unfortunately a lot of them cannot be currently proven. You could start at least a 100 new articles by typing over the conjectures in 'The book of Prime number records', and I'm sure if you read sci.math carefully you can find a 100 more that all look true. But the point is that if they are not followed up by mathematical research or at least mathematical folkore they are not important and do not belong in an enclopedia. Up to now the *only* confirmed reference to this conjecture is thread in sci.math. Nobody had found it elsewhere, nobody has heard of a mathematician named beu. Sander123 08:32, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)