Divinity Atlas
Things this atlas does not know. Each entry is a question that specialists
have posed and not settled, recorded with what would actually resolve it and which
expertise the answer needs.
These are kept deliberately, rather than quietly omitted. An atlas that shows
only what it is sure of implies a confidence it has not earned, and the gaps are often where
the interesting work is. Several sit exactly where two fields fail to meet: identifying the
hyssop of the Hebrew Bible needs a botanist and a philologist of Biblical Hebrew, and neither
one settles it alone.
You can send evidence on some of these. A pilot is open on 55 questions in one field, Palaeography. Each says what would resolve it; send something that meets that bar, with a source anybody can check, and an editor will weigh it. Sending evidence does not guarantee the question will be resolved, and it does not have to be your field to read what is being asked. See what is open.
Grouped by the kind of thing the question is about, so you can go straight to the entity type you work on.
Filter By Specialty 99 fields, 1 selected
Showing 1 of 608 questions, filtered to 1 specialty.
Numbers 1
57
Did Alexander Grothendieck really offer 57 as an example of a prime number?
Open 57
Why It Is Open The anecdote is very widely told and 57 is called the Grothendieck prime because of it. Its literal veracity is disputed within mathematical folklore, and the tellings do not agree on the setting or the wording.
What Would Settle It A first-hand account from someone present, or a contemporary written record of the exchange.
Expertise Needed History of mathematics, and oral history of the Grothendieck circle.
Question posed in
Comme Appele du Neant, As If Summoned from the Void: The Life of Alexandre Grothendieck, Allyn Jackson, Part 2, page 1196.