# ABC conjecture

(Difference between revisions)
 Revision as of 09:50, 18 September 2012 (view source) (→Q & A)← Older edit Revision as of 09:51, 18 September 2012 (view source) (→Q & A)Newer edit → Line 65: Line 65: *[http://mathoverflow.net/questions/106560/philosophy-behind-mochizukis-work-on-the-abc-conjecture Philosophy behind Mochizuki’s work on the ABC conjecture], Mathoverflow, 7 Sept, 2012 (see also [http://meta.mathoverflow.net/discussion/1438/mochizuki-proof-of-abc the metapost] for this question) *[http://mathoverflow.net/questions/106560/philosophy-behind-mochizukis-work-on-the-abc-conjecture Philosophy behind Mochizuki’s work on the ABC conjecture], Mathoverflow, 7 Sept, 2012 (see also [http://meta.mathoverflow.net/discussion/1438/mochizuki-proof-of-abc the metapost] for this question) *[http://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/12504/implications-of-proof-of-abc-conjecture-for-cs-theory Implications of proof of abc conjecture for cs theory],  Theoretical Computer Science Stackexchange, 11 Sept, 2012 *[http://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/12504/implications-of-proof-of-abc-conjecture-for-cs-theory Implications of proof of abc conjecture for cs theory],  Theoretical Computer Science Stackexchange, 11 Sept, 2012 - *[http://mathoverflow.net/questions/107379/model-theoretic-content-of-mochizukis-teichmuller-theory-papers Model-theoretic content of Mochizuki’s Teichmüller theory papers], 17 Sept 2012 + *[http://mathoverflow.net/questions/107379/model-theoretic-content-of-mochizukis-teichmuller-theory-papers Model-theoretic content of Mochizuki’s Teichmüller theory papers], Mathoverflow, 17 Sept 2012 ===Discussions=== ===Discussions===

## Revision as of 09:51, 18 September 2012

The abc conjecture asserts, roughly speaking, that if a+b=c and a,b,c are coprime, then a,b,c cannot all be too smooth; in particular, the product of all the primes dividing a, b, or c has to exceed $c^{1-\varepsilon}$ for any fixed $\varepsilon > 0$ (if a,b,c are smooth).

This shows for instance that $(1-\varepsilon) \log N / 3$-smooth a,b,c of size N which are coprime cannot sum to form a+b=c. This unfortunately seems to be too weak to be of much use for the finding primes project.

## Mochizuki's proof

### Papers

Mochizuki's claimed proof of the abc conjecture is conducted primarily through the following series of four papers:

1. (IUTT-I) Inter-universal Teichmuller Theory I: Construction of Hodge Theaters, Shinichi Mochizuki
2. (IUTT-II) Inter-universal Teichmuller Theory II: Hodge-Arakelov-theoretic Evaluation, Shinichi Mochizuki
3. (IUTT-III) Inter-universal Teichmuller Theory III: Canonical Splittings of the Log-theta-lattice, Shinichi Mochizuki
4. (IUTT-IV) Inter-universal Teichmuller Theory IV: Log-volume Computations and Set-theoretic Foundations, Shinichi Mochizuki, 30 August 2012

See also these earlier slides of Mochizuki on inter-universal Teichmuller theory. The answers to this MathOverflow post (and in particular Minhyong Kim's answer) describe the philosophy behind Mochizuki's proof strategy.

The argument also relies heavily on Mochizuki's previous work on the Hodge-Arakelov theory of elliptic curves, including the following references:

Anyone seeking to get a thorough "bottom-up" understanding of Mochizuki's argument will probably be best advised to start with these latter papers first.

In order to apply the theory developed in (IUTT I-IV) to obtain quantitative Diophantine results such as the abc conjecture, the results from the paper

are used. (Note that the published version of this paper requires some small corrections, listed here.)

Here are the remainder of Shinichi Mochizuki's papers, and here is the Wikipedia page for Shinichi Mochizuki.

### Specific topics

The last part of (IUTT-IV) explores the use of different models of ZFC set theory in order to more fully develop inter-universal Teichmuller theory (this part is not needed for the applications to the abc conjecture). There appears to be an inaccuracy in a remark in Section 3, page 43 of that paper regarding the conservative nature of the extension of ZFC by the addition of the Grothendieck universe axiom; see this blog comment. However, this remark was purely for motivational purposes and does not impact the proof of the abc conjecture.

There is some discussion at this MathOverflow post as to whether the explicit bounds for the abc conjecture are too strong to be consistent with known or conjectured lower bounds on abc.

The question of whether the results in this paper can be made completely effective (which would be of importance for several applications) is discussed in some of the comments to this blog post.