"Riemann's insight followed his discovery of a mathematical looking-glass through which he could gaze at the primes. Alice's world was turned upside down when she stepped through her looking-glass. In contrast, in the strange mathematical world beyond Riemann's glass, the chaos of the primes seemed to be transformed into an ordered pattern as strong as any mathematician could hope for. He conjectured that this order would be maintained however far one stared into the never-ending world beyond the glass. His prediction of an inner harmony on the far side of the mirror would explain why outwardly the primes look so chaotic. The metamorphosis provided by Riemann's mirror, where chaos turns to order, is one which most mathematicians find almost miraculous. The challenge that Riemann left the mathematical world was to prove that the order he thought he could discern was really there."
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Bernhard Riemann
Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann (September 17, 1826 – July 20, 1866) was an influential German mathematician who made lasting and revolutionary contributions to analysis, number theory, and differential geometry.
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