open question

A result that we feel might be true is sometimes called an open question. We say "open question" rather than "conjecture" because mathematicians value the reputation of their intuition. It could be embarrassing to call something a conjecture (i.e., state you believe it is true) and then to be proven wrong.

See Also: Conjecture, Heuristic

Related pages (outside of this work)

• Prime conjectures and open questions