Conjecture Definition and Meaning

Conjecture Definition and Meaning

Conjecture is defined as the judgment that is formed as a result of making observations or analyzing evidence. The term, which comes from the Latin coniectūra, is very common in the field of mathematics.

In this case, the conjecture consists of a statement that, as it has not been proven but has not been refuted, is conceived as true. Only when its veracity has been proven, the conjecture becomes a theorem and, therefore, can be used to develop other formal proofs.

According to abbreviationfinder.org, there are mathematicians who dedicate their entire lives to solving conjectures that have arisen in other times. One of the most famous is what is known as Goldbach’s conjecture, which was proposed by the Prussian Christian Goldbach (1690 – 1764) and consists of the idea that every even figure that is greater than 2 can be written as the sum of a pair of prime numbers.

In the cinematographic field, we have to state that this conjecture became the protagonist of a Spanish film entitled “Fermat’s room”. In 2007 it was when the directors Rodrigo Sopeña and Luis Piedrahita brought this production to the big screen, which revolves around a young university student who is going to present his demonstration of the aforementioned conjecture.

However, that next appointment will be the one that brings not only someone to enter your home and destroy everything in its path but also to be called to a mysterious appointment to which other characters will go who will be locked in a room. If they want to survive the different dangers that are found in it, they will have to solve various enigmas and mathematical problems.

Other conjectures of a mathematical nature that have become popular but have not yet been solved indicate that “there is an infinite number of primes P such that P + 2 is also prime” or that “there are no odd perfect numbers”, among many others.

When a mathematician meets the objective and proves a conjecture, it ceases to exist as such. The Spanish Francisco Santos, for example, solved the Hirsch conjecture in 2010, enunciated by Warren M. Hirsch (1918 – 2007) in 1957.

In everyday language, one can also speak of conjectures to refer to hypotheses or theories that have not yet been proven: “I believe that your brother put the house up for sale as he plans to divorce, although it is only a conjecture on my part”, “No I understand Hugo’s reaction: it seems that he got angry at your conjectures about Laura ”.

In this case, we can establish that the term we are analyzing is used with that meaning both in the police and in the field of Law. Thus, for example, we find the fact that when the police are carrying out the clarification of a crime on many occasions they make conjectures about it, based on the clues, in order to arrive at the truth of what happened.

In the same way, in the law sector, conjecture is also used during trials in which both parties, the prosecution and defense, raise the same in order to establish the principles of their action and thus manage to convince the judge of what they pose.

Conjecture Definition and Meaning

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