22 Dec
2002
22 Dec
'02
12:53 a.m.
This question remindes me of the news item that's been posted on the homepage of Eric Weisstein's MathWorld for a number of months: << A paper submitted by P. Mihailescu on April 18 [2002] allegedly proves Catalan's 158-year-old conjecture.
Am I right that this is the conjecture that the only positive integral powers of 2 and 3 that differ by 1 are 3 - 2 = 1 and 9 - 8 = 1 ??? Does anyone know whether this proof has been accepted by experts? If so, can someone please give a sketch of the proof? Thanks, Dan