Collatz 3n + 1 conjecture possibly solved
johndcook.com
johndcook.com
Have we forgot the recent NP≠P paper? The author was also a highly-regarded scientist. That did not guarantee anything.
Here's the "official" debunking summary on PolyMath:
http://michaelnielsen.org/polymath1/index.php?title=Deolalik...
If you want to read some of the discussions, a good place to start is RJ Lipton's blog and the comments there:
http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/fatal-flaws-in-deol...
There were also a few HN posts, e.g.:
But someone else should probably correct/confirm me.
In some sense it's a little unsatisfying that a simple proof has not been found, but this is what makes math so addicting I suppose.
Then again, I said the same thing when Penny Smith published her paper on NSE.