Howdy hypothesizers,

Four people/teams submitted correct solutions this week.

You were asked to find "an important figure in the history of mathematics". There were six starred clues in the puzzle which led to the following answers (see first image below):

AMAZON
DIRECTIVE
MINISTER
RIB
TIME
MERIDIAN

Alert solvers also noticed that some of the clues were awkwardly and tortuously worded. For example, the clue for 17A, with answer "opal", read "Everyone born in October has this as their birthstone". Why not just "October birthstone"? And this was not even the worst offender. What was going on here? More on this later.

The big hint was in the clue for 46D. It read, in part, "when preceded by a word suggested by the answers to the six starred entries, what you need to look at to solve the meta" (see second image), and the answer was "clues".

What did the six words above have in common? They could each be combined with the word "prime" to form a well-known phrase:

Amazon PRIME
PRIME directive
PRIME minister
PRIME rib
PRIME time
PRIME meridian

So the hint at 46D advises you to look to the "prime clues" in order to solve the meta. Those who did so noticed that many of the prime-numbered clues were the ones with the convoluted wording mentioned above.

Why did I choose to write so much unnecessary verbiage in these clues? Because I needed to start each clue with a specific letter! In particular, the first letters (i.e., the PRIMARY letters) of the prime-numbered clues spell out the name of the meta answer: BERNHARD RIEMANN (see third image). There were a few trailing prime-numbered clues, but these began with blanks and were to be ignored.

So this was not the solution I had envisioned, but right is right and it still counts.

Eagle-eyed solvers also noted that "zeta" was an answer in the grid. This was a reference to Riemann's zeta function, the basis of what is widely considered the greatest unsolved problem in mathematics today.