Apery Apr 2026

Roger Apéry was a French mathematician best known for the 1978 proof of the irrationality of the Riemann zeta function at 3, , now known as . Apéry’s Constant ( )

Fellow mathematicians, including Henri Cohen and Alfred van der Poorten, eventually verified his work, confirming it as a genuine breakthrough. Apéry's constant (calculated with Twitter) - Numberphile Roger Apéry was a French mathematician best known

When asked where his complex formulas came from, he famously replied, "They grow in my garden". Apéry's constant is defined as the sum of

Apéry's constant is defined as the sum of the reciprocals of the positive cubes: no such "neat" form exists for

His presentation was disorganized and featured "unlikely assertions" that many attendees initially dismissed as a prank.

At a 1978 conference in Marseille, Apéry presented a proof that

ζ(3)=∑n=1∞1n3=1+123+133+…zeta open paren 3 close paren equals sum from n equals 1 to infinity of the fraction with numerator 1 and denominator n cubed end-fraction equals 1 plus the fraction with numerator 1 and denominator 2 cubed end-fraction plus the fraction with numerator 1 and denominator 3 cubed end-fraction plus … It is approximately 1.2020569 . Significance: While even zeta values like have clear closed forms involving , no such "neat" form exists for