Bernhard Riemann in the context of "Prime Number Theorem"

In mathematics, the Riemann hypothesis is the conjecture that the Riemann zeta function has its zeros only at the negative even integers and complex numbers with real part ⁠1/2⁠. Many consider it to be the most important unsolved problem in pure mathematics. It is of great interest in number theory because it implies results about the distribution of prime numbers. It was proposed by Bernhard Riemann (1859), after whom it is named.

The Riemann hypothesis and some of its generalizations, along with Goldbach's conjecture and the twin prime conjecture, make up Hilbert's eighth problem in David Hilbert's list of twenty-three unsolved problems; it is also one of the Millennium Prize Problems of the Clay Mathematics Institute, which offers US$1 million for a solution to any of them. The name is also used for some closely related analogues, such as the Riemann hypothesis for curves over finite fields.

In quantum field theory, the term moduli (sg.: modulus; more properly moduli fields) is sometimes used to refer to scalar fields whose potential energy function has continuous families of global minima. Such potential functions frequently occur in supersymmetric systems. The term "modulus" is borrowed from mathematics (or more specifically, moduli space is borrowed from algebraic geometry), where it is used synonymously with "parameter". The word moduli (Moduln in German) first appeared in 1857 in Bernhard Riemann's celebrated paper "Theorie der Abel'schen Functionen".

In differential geometry, a Riemannian manifold (or Riemann space) is a geometric space on which many geometric notions such as distance, angles, length, volume, and curvature are defined. Euclidean space, the ${\displaystyle n}$-sphere, hyperbolic space, and smooth surfaces in three-dimensional space, such as ellipsoids and paraboloids, are all examples of Riemannian manifolds. Riemannian manifolds take their name from German mathematician Bernhard Riemann, who first conceptualized them in 1854.

Formally, a Riemannian metric (or just a metric) on a smooth manifold is a smoothly varying choice of inner product for each tangent space of the manifold. A Riemannian manifold is a smooth manifold together with a Riemannian metric. The techniques of differential and integral calculus are used to pull geometric data out of the Riemannian metric. For example, integration leads to the Riemannian distance function, whereas differentiation is used to define curvature and parallel transport.

Riemannian geometry is the branch of differential geometry that studies Riemannian manifolds. An example of a Riemannian manifold is a surface, on which distances are measured by the length of curves on the surface. Riemannian geometry is the study of surfaces and their higher-dimensional analogs (called manifolds), in which distances are calculated along curves belonging to the manifold. Formally, Riemannian geometry is the study of smooth manifolds with a Riemannian metric (an inner product on the tangent space at each point that varies smoothly from point to point). This gives, in particular, local notions of angle, length of curves, surface area and volume. From those, some other global quantities can be derived by integrating local contributions.

Riemannian geometry originated with the vision of Bernhard Riemann expressed in his inaugural lecture "Über die Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zu Grunde liegen" ("On the Hypotheses on which Geometry is Based"). It is a very broad and abstract generalization of the differential geometry of surfaces in R. Development of Riemannian geometry resulted in synthesis of diverse results concerning the geometry of surfaces and the behavior of geodesics on them, with techniques that can be applied to the study of differentiable manifolds of higher dimensions. It enabled the formulation of Einstein's general theory of relativity, made profound impact on group theory and representation theory, as well as analysis, and spurred the development of algebraic and differential topology.

In the branch of mathematics known as real analysis, the Riemann integral, created by Bernhard Riemann, was the first rigorous definition of the integral of a function on an interval. It was presented to the faculty at the University of Göttingen in 1854, but not published in a journal until 1868. For many functions and practical applications, the Riemann integral can be evaluated by the fundamental theorem of calculus or approximated by numerical integration, or simulated using Monte Carlo integration.

In mathematics, the Riemann sphere, named after Bernhard Riemann, is a model of the extended complex plane (also called the closed complex plane): the complex plane plus one point at infinity. This extended plane represents the extended complex numbers, that is, the complex numbers plus a value ${\displaystyle \infty }$ for infinity. With the Riemann model, the point ${\displaystyle \infty }$ is near to very large numbers, just as the point ${\displaystyle 0}$ is near to very small numbers.

The extended complex numbers are useful in complex analysis because they allow for division by zero in some circumstances, in a way that makes expressions such as ${\displaystyle 1/0=\infty }$ well-behaved. For example, any rational function on the complex plane can be extended to a holomorphic function on the Riemann sphere, with the poles of the rational function mapping to infinity. More generally, any meromorphic function can be thought of as a holomorphic function whose codomain is the Riemann sphere.