The proliferation of the Internet and the pressure to make headlines has led to a number of recent self announcements of impressive-looking new mathematical results, often noted in press reports and blogs. This phenomenon is neither entirely new nor always without merit. Some genuine breakthroughs have been announced this way — one example is the discovery in August 2002 of what is now known as the Agrawal–Kayal–Saxena primality test, discovered by three researchers of these names at the Indian institute of Technology in Kanpur, India.

However, there are many other examples of mathematical results touted in press announcements that have

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