A Nigerian professor has received a $1 million prize for solving a maths conundrum that had stumped scholars for more than 150 years, The Telegraph reports.
Dr Opeyemi Enoch, from the Federal University in the ancient city of Oye Ekiti, solved one of the seven millennium problems in mathematics.
The professor was able to finally provide a solution to the Riemann Hypothesis first proposed by German mathematician Bernhard Riemann in 1859, earning him the $1m prize.
He announced his findings at the International Conference of Mathematics and Computer Science in Austria, Vienna, exactly 156 years to the day it had been put forward by Riemann.
“Dr Enoch first investigated and then established the claims of Riemann,” said a statement from the university where he teaches.
“He went on to consider and to correct the misconceptions that were communicated by mathematicians in the past generations, thus paving way for his solutions and proofs to be established.
“He also showed how other problems of this kind can be formulated and obtained the matrix that Hilbert and Poly predicted will give these undiscovered solutions. He revealed how these solutions are applicable in cryptography, quantum information science and in quantum computers.”
Dr Enoch has previously worked on mathematical models for generating electricity from sound, thunder and ocean bodies.
