This classroom note is presented as a suggested exercise--not to have the class prove or disprove Goldbach's Conjecture, but to stimulate student discussions in the classroom regarding proof, as well as necessary, sufficient, satisfied, and unsatisfied conditions. Goldbach's Conjecture is one of the oldest unsolved problems in the field of number…

When dealing with a complex problem, solving it by reduction to simpler problems, or problems for which the solution is already known, is a common method in mathematics and other scientific disciplines, as in computer science and, specifically, in the field of computability. However, when teaching computational models (as part of computability)…