Papers by Professor Shinichi Mochizuki of the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Kyoto University, which claim to have proved the "ABC conjecture," one of the most important and difficult unsolved problems in modern mathematics, will be published in "PRIMS," a specialized journal edited by the same institute. The decision was made prior to April 3. Although the papers have been available on the Internet since 2012, it has taken eight years for them to be published in a specialized journal.

The ABC conjecture is a problem regarding the relationship between the two ways of calculations. It was proposed by European mathematicians in 1980s. It has been considered important because a number of unsolved conjectures would follow immediately from the assumption of settlement of ABC conjecture. There are four papers, totaling about 600 pages.

Although Professor Mochizuki is the chief editor of PRIMS, Professors Masaki Kashiwara and Akio Tamagawa, both of the same institute, served as chief co-editors and formed a special editorial committee, excluding Mochizuki, to review his paper.

Regarding the difficulty in proving the conjecture, Professor Mochizuki commented publically, "I feel the type of the difficulty is different from existing math theories." He also said that even professional mathematicians "may likely fail to follow the argument with a totally different framework."

Professor Mochizuki skipped grades to enter Princeton University in the United States at age 16, and graduated from the university's Department of Mathematics at age 19. In 2002, he became a professor at Kyoto University at age 32. Regarding the significance of his research in Kyoto, he emphasized the advantages of having outstanding mathematicians at the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences. "It would be difficult to advance math research without a certain number of fellows that can understand your ideas to some degree," he said.