PICTURED smiling next to the blackboard, this 22-year-old caused a media storm last month when she contacted Swedish newspapers, claiming to have solved a famous mathematical problem. But her triumph is turning sour as colleagues condemn her work.
Elin Oxenhielm, a graduate student at Stockholm University, thought she had solved a part of Hilbert鈥檚 16th problem. This is a statement about the nature of the curves and surfaces that come from certain kinds of equations. It was proposed in 1900 but has remained unproved ever since.
The journal Nonlinear Analysis reviewed her paper and decided to publish it, so she seemed to have every reason to believe she was right. But others disagree. 鈥淓veryone who reads the paper knows that it is wrong,鈥� says Grigori Rozenblum, a professor of mathematics at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. The journal, which has had complaints from Rozenblum and others, told New 杏吧原创 it will be reviewing the paper again.
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Oxenhielm stands by her work. But whether she is vindicated or not, she will have to work hard to mend her relations with fellow mathematicians, who believe that she should not have talked to the media before she had talked to them.