One of the world's most renowned mathematicians showed how he solved the 160-year-old Riemann Hypothesis at a lecture on Monday - and he will be awarded $1 million if his solution is confirmed.
Sir Michael Atiyah, who has won the two biggest prizes in mathematics the "Fields Medal" and "Abel Prize" before, took the stage at the Heidelberg Laureate Forum in Germany on Monday to present his work.
To solve the hypothesis someone would need to find a way to predict every prime number, which at first seem to be random.
Aityah's solution will need to be checked by other mathematicians, and then published, before it is fully accepted and he can claim the prize from the Clay Mathematics Institute of Cambridge (CMI), in l ine with the organization's rules.
The Riemann Hypothesis is one of seven unsolved "Millennium Prizes" from the CMI, each worth $1 million to the one who solves it.
What is the Riemann Hypothesis, and how did Atiyah solve it?
The Riemann Hypothesis was first posited by Bernhard Riemann in 1859.
The hypothesis is an attempt to answer an old question about prime numbers (numbers that divide only by themselves.)
The distribution of prime numbers among all normal numbers does not follow any regular pattern, the Clay Mathematics Institute said.
Clay have so far proved 10,000,000,000,000 prime numbers are consistent with Riemann's old equation.
So, the $1 million prize goes to someone who can prove that the equation applies to all prime numbers.
And Atiyah thinks he has done it, using a "radically new approach" to solve the hypothesis, a description of his presentation read.
He posted this complex mathematical document explaining his solution online.
Markus Pössel works for Astronomy outreach in Heidelberg. He live-tweeted Atiyah's lecture below, and helps clarify Aityah's process:
Atiyah said in the lecture at the Heidelberg Laureate Forum in Germany that he used work from John von Neumann and Friedrich Hirzebruch to help him on his way to solving the problem.
Mathematician Keith Devlin wrote in 1998: "Ask any professional mathematician what the single most important open problem in the entire field is, and you are almost certain to receive the answer 'the Riemann Hypothesis'."
The New Scientists said Atiyah is one of the UK's most eminent mathematical figures, having received the two awards often referred to as the Nobel prizes of mathematics, the Fields medal and the Abel Prize.
He also served as president of the London Mathematical Society, the Royal Society, and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Insider asked the CMI for a comment on Atiyah's solution but they said they had no comment at this time.
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