

First proof that infinitely many prime numbers come in pairs (2013) - valera_rozuvan
http://www.nature.com/news/first-proof-that-infinitely-many-prime-numbers-come-in-pairs-1.12989

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nathan_f77
Oh, this is from 2013. I was getting excited to read about a new discovery.

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ikeboy
If you didn't know about it, what's the difference to you? As long as it
hasn't been disproven, and you'd have been interested hearing it then, what
changes?

On a related topic, I sometimes wonder why people seek out new entertainment
(movies, tv shows), when it's unlikely to be better than everything already
made in the past. Why would you prefer watching a new movie over an old one?
The obvious answers (better CGI, closer similarity to current culture, social
reasons aka "what other people are watching") don't seem to fully explain it.
There seems to be some "new thingy pull" that affects many people (even myself
at times), yet I can't explain it.

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nathan_f77
Sorry, I meant that I have already read this article a long time ago, and the
title of this post got me excited to read about some new developments.

As for your second point, I think you mentioned a lot of the main reasons. But
I disagree that new media is unlikely to be better than everything made in the
past. In fact, I would say that it's very likely that a new movie or TV show
will be far better than something made in the past, simply because they have
much bigger budgets now, better technology, and even a better understanding of
filmmaking and storytelling. Especially with recent TV shows such as Breaking
Bad, Game of Thrones, True Detective. The bar has been raised very high.

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ikeboy
It's possible that a random new movie will be better than a random movie in
the past, but you're not talking about random low-budget ones, you're talking
about high-budget ones. It's not like they didn't have some big budget films
in the past, and I doubt a "better understanding of filmmaking and
storytelling" is responsible for more enjoyment of current things. Also, I'm
more referring to even movies from 5-10 years ago, which don't suffer from
lack of technology in general, or most of the other reasons, and yet there
doesn't seem to be as much consumption of them than the "new thing".
Personally, I'm fine with consuming old media, but the world doesn't seem to
share that with me, and I don't fully get why.

There's also the availability of extensive ratings for past media, which means
you can pick and choose the good ones, something harder to do when picking
stuff still in theaters.

As a counterpoint, I do enjoy sequels of things I've previously enjoyed (and
understand the sequel effect), but that doesn't seem big enough to account for
the general phenomenon either.

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daniel-levin
No, this is absolutely _not_ the first (correct) proof that infinitely many
prime numbers come in pairs! That is the twin prime conjecture, and at the
time of writing this comment, steadily remains a conjecture. I wonder why
_Nature_ , a publication held in high regard, would publish an article with
such a title. This is not to say that the result is anything less than
incredible.

Terence Tao delivered a very good lecture on this result here [0]

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp06oGD4m00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp06oGD4m00)

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valera_rozuvan
More precise quote from the Nature article: "... Yitang Zhang ... finds that
there are infinitely many pairs of primes that are less than 70 million units
apart without relying on unproven conjectures."

I agree that there is a difference between "twin primes" and "pairs of
primes".

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valera_rozuvan
Twin primes are pairs of primes which differ by two.

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AnimalMuppet
Note: 2013.

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valera_rozuvan
In 2014 they were able to further improve the results of Zhang. Polymath8
project "Bounded gaps between primes"
[http://michaelnielsen.org/polymath1/index.php?title=Bounded_...](http://michaelnielsen.org/polymath1/index.php?title=Bounded_gaps_between_primes)
.

