New reports have debunked a Nigerian lecturer's claim to have solved a 156 year-old maths problem.

Dr. Opeyemi Enoch, speaking in a BBC interview had claimed to have solved the Riemann Zeta Hypothesis and in the process bagged a $1 million prize.

Even though it has been widely reported, it appears the story might be untrue, Quartz says.



The Riemann Hypothesis, first proposed by German mathematician Bernhard Riemann in 1859, is one of seven Millennium problems presented by the Clay Mathematics Institute with a $1 million reward for solving each one.

However, the US-based Clay Mathematics Institute has refused to confirm the news of Enoch’s solution, instead saying “the current status of the problems and complete information about each” is available on the institute’s website.

On its website, the institute lists all seven Millennium problems and states whether or not they have been solved. Of the seven, only the Poincaré Conjecture, solved by Grigoriy Perelman in 2003, is listed as solved. All the other six problems, including the Riemann Hypothesis, remain listed as unsolved.

Dr. Enoch has an academia.edu page where the “proof” of the solution to the Riemann Hypothesis has been uploaded—but that has also come in for criticism, as the proof is believed to have been plagiarized, Quartz said.

The irony is that even though Enoch’s genius appears to have been mistaken, Nigerians are well known for some original and verified achievements, it added.