Two weeks ago, a modest-looking paper was uploaded to the arXiv preprint server with the unassuming title On the invariant subspace problem in Hilbert spaces. The paper is just 13 pages long and its list of references contains only a single entry.
The paper purports to contain the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle that mathematicians have been picking away at for more than half a century: the invariant subspace problem.
Famous open problems often attract ambitious attempts at solutions by interesting characters out to make their name. But such efforts are usually quickly shot down by experts.
