'Euler's Equation of degree four

mathematician Daniel J. Madden and physicist, Lee W. Jacobi, found solutions to a puzzle that has been around for centuries.Jacobi and Madden have found a way to generate an infinite number of solutions for a puzzle known as 'Euler's Equation of degree four.The equation is part of a branch of mathematics called number theory. Number theory deals with the properties of numbers and the way they relate to each other. It is filled with problems that can be likened to numerical puzzles..In the mathematical puzzle that Jacobi and Madden worked on, the problem was finding variables that satisfy a Diophantine equation of order four. These equations are so named because they were first studied by the ancient Greek mathematician Diophantus, known as 'the father of algebra.In 1772, Euler, one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, hypothesized that to satisfy equations with higher powers, there would need to be as many variables as that power. For example, a fourth order equation would need four different variables, like the equation above.Euler's hypothesis was disproved in 1987 by a Harvard graduate student named Noam Elkies. He found a case where only three variables were needed.Madden and Jacobi used elliptic curves to generate new solutions. Each solution contains a seed for creating more solutions, which is much more efficient than previous methods used.