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The Green-Tao theorem on arithmetic progressions in primes — Terence Tao

2004 AD · Transmission: Global
MathematicsTheoryNorth American

Terence Tao, together with Ben Green, proves in 2004 that the prime numbers contain arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions: for any length k, there exist infinitely many k-term arithmetic progressions formed exclusively of prime numbers. The result, which combines additive-combinatorics techniques with Szemerédi's theorem and methods from ergodic theory, is surprising for demonstrating such regular structure within a set — the primes — intuitively considered "chaotic" or pseudorandom. The official 2006 Fields Medal citation explicitly mentions this theorem among Tao's central contributions, alongside his broader work in partial differential equations, combinatorics, and number theory.

InstitutionUniversity of California, Los Angeles
Historical regionAustralia / USA
Primary sourceGreen, B.; Tao, T. — "The primes contain arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions" (Annals of Mathematics, 167, 2008, preprint circulated since 2004)
Secondary sourceInternational Mathematical Union — Fields Medal citation 2006
Original languageEnglish
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