Australian Born Fields Medallist, Terence Tao, Closes in on Solving the Weak Goldbach Conjecture. (May 15, 2012)

Terence Tao, 2006 Fields Medallist, is working toward solving the weak Goldbach Conjecture which Christian Goldbach proposed in a letter written on June 7, 1742 to Leonhard Euler. Stated in its simplest -- you can divide any odd number into the sum of, at most, three prime numbers.

Now UCLA professor of mathematics, Tao has shown that odd numbers are the sums of, at most, five primes and he believes that he is on the way to reducing that to three. He sees possible practical value from the effort in that it might lead mathematicians to ideas useful for encrypting sensitive data.

To date using computer calculations it's been shown that all odd numbers up to 19 digits are the sums of at most three prime numbers, however, a rigorous proof is yet to be found.

In addition the strong Goldbach conjecture, which in fact was made by Euler, states that every even number larger than 2 is the sum of two primes remains outstanding, and as Professor Tao points out, the weak conjecture is incomparably easier because by splitting a number into a sum of three, “there are many, many more chances for you to get lucky and have all the numbers be prime,” and so far no one has developed a strategy for how to solve the big challenge.