Discussion on answer by Dan Romik: Have mathematicians concluded that an Indian mathematical physicist has solved the Riemann Hypothesis?

I don't think it's original research. It analyzes the claims being made on the basis of the evidence being used to support them. Not the answerer's fault that the evidence literally contradicts the claims.

@Avery: I kind of disagree. The answer is a good answer to the question, I enjoyed reading it, and it fully convinced me. But I'm not sure it's a good answer by the standards of skeptics.SE. The problem is that the detailed analysis is basically original research. It doesn't use any external reference, and it may be difficult to verify the arguments independently. But these are usually requirements that we would expect of good answers on this site. 1/2

this is a very good demonstration of how a math-related question can be on topic for this SE.

@leftaroundabout no exaggeration. Anyone publishing a paper must convince others the paper is correct. With normal papers the standard of certainty other people will seek is less than absolute, and errors do slip by occasionally. With the Riemann hypothesis a much stricter standard would apply and people would need to be absolutely convinced that they checked and confirmed every single detail. But if page 2 of the paper already contains conceptual misunderstandings and literal errors on the part of the author, then the author has already failed, and no one would need to read the entire paper.

@JohnColeman it’s not evidence that he’s a crank. We don’t know the reason why those people didn’t respond, and one could imagine a situation where they didn’t respond because the proof involves a level of technical detail that only a handful of people in the world possess, such that only 7 people both have the knowledge to evaluate it and were willing to dedicate the time and effort to do so. So as I said, I think it’s misleading to characterize those non-responses as “hardly a vote of confidence”. They are not a priori a vote of anything except possibly that mathematicians are busy people.

I am not qualified to judge the underlying articles, but that the author has not been able to get this past peer review in a mathematical journal of even the slightest level of reputability in four-plus years says a lot to me, and what it says to me is not positive. I do know that it can sometimes take over a year to get past peer review, but four-plus years???