Your explanation is very clear, but I still think that the article is confusing about that. Note how the author sets the expecatations at the beginning of the article:
"...the proof these young trailblazers have proposed might make a few established mathematicians eat their words.
This is because their proof uses trigonometry."
This wording implies to me that Jackson and Johnson are actually the first who came up with a trigonometric proof because otherwise how an nth in a series make a few established mathematicians eat their words? Why would they eat their words now? Why not after the first trigonometric proof?
So, he raises the expectations then drops a "it's been done before" bomb, now what are we supposed to think about what's happened here? Is it what we read at the beginning? Or is it just the elegance of the proof that's cool? But, why does THIS one make the mathematicians eat their words then?
The whole "yeah it's awesome, amazing actually, but hey, forget what I said earlier, it's been done before" kind of composition confuses me.
"...the proof these young trailblazers have proposed might make a few established mathematicians eat their words.
This is because their proof uses trigonometry."
This wording implies to me that Jackson and Johnson are actually the first who came up with a trigonometric proof because otherwise how an nth in a series make a few established mathematicians eat their words? Why would they eat their words now? Why not after the first trigonometric proof?
So, he raises the expectations then drops a "it's been done before" bomb, now what are we supposed to think about what's happened here? Is it what we read at the beginning? Or is it just the elegance of the proof that's cool? But, why does THIS one make the mathematicians eat their words then?
The whole "yeah it's awesome, amazing actually, but hey, forget what I said earlier, it's been done before" kind of composition confuses me.