Tarski's High School Algebra Problem

In mathematical logic, Tarski's high school algebra problem was a question posed by Alfred Tarski. It asks whether there are identities involving addition, multiplication, and exponentiation over the positive integers that cannot be proved using eleven axioms about these operations that are taught in high school-level mathematics. The question was solved in 1980 by Alex Wilkie who showed that such unprovable identities do exist.

Read more about Tarski's High School Algebra Problem:  Statement of The Problem, Example of A Provable Identity, History of The Problem, Solution, Generalisations

Famous quotes containing the words high, school, algebra and/or problem:

    There’s Margaret and Marjorie and Dorothy and Nan,
    A Daphne and a Mary who live in privacy;
    One’s had her fill of lovers, another’s had but one,
    Another boasts, “I pick and choose and have but two or three.”
    If head and limb have beauty and the instep’s high and light
    They can spread out what sail they please for all I have to say....
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.
    —Advertisement. Poster in a school near Irving Place, New York City (1983)

    Poetry has become the higher algebra of metaphors.
    José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)

    Involuntary mental hospitalization is like slavery. Refining the standards for commitment is like prettifying the slave plantations. The problem is not how to improve commitment, but how to abolish it.
    Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)