4 ms·

* If the statistical physics method used here is powerful enough to resolve P != NP, then there's a good chance it is powerful enough to have led to many sm

* If the statistical physics method used here is powerful enough to resolve P != NP, then there's a good chance it is powerful enough to have led to many smaller results before the author was able to nail the big one. It's a little weird we haven't heard anything about that earlier. Well, Wiles didn't publish intermediate results either, partly because someone might have beat him to the final result with those intermediate results. It would also give away what he was working on. Deolalikar was aiming for the grand prize as well, so skipping the publishing of intermediate results doesn't seem strange to me.

Vivtek 16y ago
The conclusion might seem to be that prizes harm science. Which sucks, but intermediate results are important for science as a whole; if there's significant financial reason to withhold them, we're no better than the alchemists.
- loup-vaillant 16y ago
  The problem is, the most important prize (being able to say "I found it first") is unavoidable.
  - Confusion 16y ago
    Yeah, that's what I meant with 'the grand prize'. Not the 1 M$ from the Clay institute; that's just topping on the cake.
    - dLuna 16y ago
      Agree fully. Also worth considering if this proof turns out to be correct, is that he will probably have employment contracts and speaker deals dwarfing that $1M quite soon.
      - akshayubhat 16y ago
        Money is the last thing to care about if you solve P ?= NP. Humanity will remember you in same league as Turing Pythagoras Gauss and others.
        connellybarnes 16y ago
        You can't eat prestige. Nor find joy in a life of isolation. Look at Rembrandt's philosopher if you want the true picture of the life of the mind. How history remembers you only matters after you're dead. Can you really tell someone to live a life of solitary confinement? The isolating parts of academia honestly suck. But everyone convinces themselves that academia is so great, in part because so many have gone before, suffering, down the same path. Look at all the theoretical physicists and mathematicians. Do you think these people are HAPPY? Remember, if you leave math you are "dead." It's about sacrifice, not about your health or happiness as a human being. The best part of academia is the collaboration, the social aspects. As for the environment, it could definitely be renovated to make accommodation for humanity. Obviously that will never happen. So there needs to be big CAUTION signs posted up whenever someone lauds the greatness of academia, saying it is not all fun and games, lots of people spend decades locked in offices hunched over pieces of paper.
        akshayubhat 16y ago
        First, Well the guy in question works in R&D lab of HP, and must be getting paid at least 120k$ per year. He also seems to have a good family and thus a social life :D I fail to understand why you draw such a poor picture of a Maths / Physics PhD's life. Professors have a lot of interaction with students thus it is not exactly solitary confinement. Your picture of Academia is too dark. I agree that there are people who get stuck in doing one Post-Doc after other and never get any tenure in life, surely it sucks for them but there are several Physicists and Mathematics PhD students who end up as a Quants on Wall Street and earn huge money. If you read any posts / articles written by professors advising aspiring PhD students, you would rarely find them portraying a PhD life as fantasy filled life. So in my opinion Caution signs are already there.
        16y ago
- pmiller2 16y ago
  But, there was no prize for solving FLT other than being able to list on one's CV "Proved FLT."
  - shadowfox 16y ago
    You wouldnt actually need to put that in your CV
    - bonafidehan 16y ago
      You actually won't need a CV.
      - shadowfox 16y ago
        That is a more precise statement :)
  - sfk 16y ago
    Not that it matters, but there was the Wolfskehl Prize: http://www.simonsingh.net/Wolfskehl_Prize.html http://www.simonsingh.net/Wolfskehl_Prize.html
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

Vivtek 16y ago

The conclusion might seem to be that prizes harm science. Which sucks, but intermediate results are important for science as a whole; if there's significant financial reason to withhold them, we're no better than the alchemists.

loup-vaillant 16y ago
The problem is, the most important prize (being able to say "I found it first") is unavoidable.
- Confusion 16y ago
  Yeah, that's what I meant with 'the grand prize'. Not the 1 M$ from the Clay institute; that's just topping on the cake.
  - dLuna 16y ago
    Agree fully. Also worth considering if this proof turns out to be correct, is that he will probably have employment contracts and speaker deals dwarfing that $1M quite soon.
    - akshayubhat 16y ago
      Money is the last thing to care about if you solve P ?= NP. Humanity will remember you in same league as Turing Pythagoras Gauss and others.
      - connellybarnes 16y ago
        You can't eat prestige. Nor find joy in a life of isolation. Look at Rembrandt's philosopher if you want the true picture of the life of the mind. How history remembers you only matters after you're dead. Can you really tell someone to live a life of solitary confinement? The isolating parts of academia honestly suck. But everyone convinces themselves that academia is so great, in part because so many have gone before, suffering, down the same path. Look at all the theoretical physicists and mathematicians. Do you think these people are HAPPY? Remember, if you leave math you are "dead." It's about sacrifice, not about your health or happiness as a human being. The best part of academia is the collaboration, the social aspects. As for the environment, it could definitely be renovated to make accommodation for humanity. Obviously that will never happen. So there needs to be big CAUTION signs posted up whenever someone lauds the greatness of academia, saying it is not all fun and games, lots of people spend decades locked in offices hunched over pieces of paper.
        akshayubhat 16y ago
        First, Well the guy in question works in R&D lab of HP, and must be getting paid at least 120k$ per year. He also seems to have a good family and thus a social life :D I fail to understand why you draw such a poor picture of a Maths / Physics PhD's life. Professors have a lot of interaction with students thus it is not exactly solitary confinement. Your picture of Academia is too dark. I agree that there are people who get stuck in doing one Post-Doc after other and never get any tenure in life, surely it sucks for them but there are several Physicists and Mathematics PhD students who end up as a Quants on Wall Street and earn huge money. If you read any posts / articles written by professors advising aspiring PhD students, you would rarely find them portraying a PhD life as fantasy filled life. So in my opinion Caution signs are already there.
        16y ago
pmiller2 16y ago
But, there was no prize for solving FLT other than being able to list on one's CV "Proved FLT."
- shadowfox 16y ago
  You wouldnt actually need to put that in your CV
  - bonafidehan 16y ago
    You actually won't need a CV.
    - shadowfox 16y ago
      That is a more precise statement :)
- sfk 16y ago
  Not that it matters, but there was the Wolfskehl Prize: http://www.simonsingh.net/Wolfskehl_Prize.html http://www.simonsingh.net/Wolfskehl_Prize.html

deleted 16y ago

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