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Computer scientists are hardly "outsiders" to math problems. The famous computer scientists (Turing, Knuth, Dijkstra etc) were all mathematicians by training.

• k2enemy 11y ago
  Absolutely nowhere in the article did it suggest that computer scientists are outsiders to math problems.
  • OJFord 11y ago
    The title, and the biography of those that cracked it, does. But I don't think it's false. The point is that this hyper-specialised; hyper-abstract field of mathematics, which nobody outside of had a grip on, rather suddenly came to be shown equivalent to many problems in many fields. One such field & problem was (still mathematics, if you like, and) accessible to these computer scientists. I particularly enjoyed: > “It seemed so natural, so central to the kinds of things > I think about,” he said. “I thought, ‘I’ve got to be > able to prove that.’” He guessed that the problem might > take him a few weeks. > > Instead, it took him five years.
  • sp332 11y ago
    Word spread quickly through the mathematics community that one of the paramount problems in C * -algebras and a host of other fields had been solved by three outsiders — computer scientists who had barely a nodding acquaintance with the disciplines at the heart of the problem.
    • Ar-Curunir 11y ago
      Theoretical computer science is mathematics
      • seba_dos1 11y ago
        But it's not "discipline at the heart of the problem".