Conference attendees were skeptical when mathematician Roger Apéry claimed he could prove the irrationality of the famous number ζ(3). Apéry, with his hillbilly accent and reputation as a provocateur, presented a seemingly impossible proof that left attendees hooting in disbelief. However, Henri Cohen emerged convinced and, along with a few other mathematicians, completed the proof within months. Apéry’s success was hailed as an isolated miracle until recently, when mathematicians Calegari, Dimitrov, and Tang expanded his approach into a powerful method for proving the irrationality of an infinite collection of zeta-like values, sparking excitement in the mathematical world.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/rational-or-not-this-basic-math-question-took-decades-to-answer-20250108/