Opeyemi Enoch of the Federal University in Oye Ekiti believes that he has solved a 156-year-old math problem, and might be $1 million better off as a result. 

However, his claims have been met with plenty of skepticism, and no shortage of criticism either as the senior lecturer in mathematics has hit the headlines over the last few days. 

Several reports have claimed that his findings are questionable, while others have stated that he "seems to be gathering papers about the Riemann Hypothesis on academia.edu under his own name" that are the work of others.

The Riemann Hyopthesis, which was put forward by Bernard Riemann in 1859, attempts to explain the distribution of prime numbers. Although they do not follow any regular pattern, Reimann posited his hypothesis that all "interesting" solutions lie on a vertical line.  

The Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) state that "a proof that it is true for every interesting solution would shed light on many of the mysteries surrounding the distribution of prime numbers", and have offered the $1 million prize for it and the six other mathematical 'Millennium Problems' that defy solution. 

However, speaking to CNN, Naomi Kraker of the CMI stated that "to our mind, [the Riemann's Hypothesis] remains unsolved", and the only Millennium problem to have been cracked so far is the Poincaré Conjecture.

Enoch's apparent solution was presented at on November 11th at the International Conference on Mathematics and Computer Science (the legitimacy of which has also been questioned) and it's set for publication as a paper in a journal related to the conference in December under the title 'A Matrix That Generates the Point Spectral of the Riemann Zeta Function'. 

He told CNN that the work on the problem took him "seven good years" and that while he has heard the criticism, he's not paying it much heed: "People have the privilege and the right to say whatever they want to say. I have not really been giving attention to some of the comments".

If Enoch's proof does turn out to be the real deal, it could take quite a while for him to get the reward, as there are a number of conditions to be met: it must be published in a journal of "worldwide repute" and also get the backing of the mathematical community for two years. 

That shouldn't be too much of an issue however, as Enoch was apparently not motivated by the reward but by the encouragement of his students who first brought the problem to him. 

For now, anyway, it seems that it still isn't proved.

Image via Aperiodical.com

Via CNN, Aperiodical.com