Is it Wise to Bet on Mathematical Progress? The publishers of a book about a man obsessed with Goldbach’s conjecture — a deceptively simple but famously unproven mathematical hypothesis from 1742 — have offered a $1m prize for a reputable proof of the conjecture before March 2002. They’ve indemnified themselves against the possibility of having to pay out; thus, the underwriter of the iinsurance policy is in essence placing a bet against a solution to the conjecture within the timeframe. Would mathematicians agree on the odds — around 100:1 — that the unnamed insurance company took on? Lingua Franca