4 ms·
Great article - very inspiring to hear about his collaboration with another undergraduate at MIT over 3 years, and the joint awards they've won together. My un
by vjk 6y ago
Great article - very inspiring to hear about his collaboration with another undergraduate at MIT over 3 years, and the joint awards they've won together.
My undergraduate graph theory textbook had this quote from Paul Erdos:
" Suppose aliens invade the earth and threaten to obliterate it in a year's time unless human beings can find the Ramsey number for red five and blue five. We could marshal the world's best minds and fastest computers, and within a year we could probably calculate the value.
If the aliens demanded the Ramsey number for red six and blue six, however, we would have no choice but to launch a preemptive attack."
In other words - some of the basic questions about these unbelievably small numbers (that you could count on your hands and toes) are so difficult, they push the limits of human ingenuity.
- spekcular 6y agoEven for R(5,5), we're probably better off with the preemptive attack, according to a researcher in the area: https://mathoverflow.net/questions/210653/algorithms-for-calculating-r5-5-and-r6-6/210746#210746 https://mathoverflow.net/questions/210653/algorithms-for-cal....
- swirepe 6y ago>we're probably better off with the preemptive attack This is true for most problems.
- therein 6y agoWhat if they had been observing us for a while and aware of our true limitations and were posting this question as a test to see if we were capable of recognizing our own limitations as a species and resolve it through rational means rather than conflict? We would have failed greatly in that case with that preemptive attack.
- lupire 6y ago5 is a small number, but "Ramsey" isn't.