5 ms·

When of course, in reality rather than clickbaity titles, they only wrote up the final, concise proof using two pages _after_ thinking about, and working on, th

When of course, in reality rather than clickbaity titles, they only wrote up the final, concise proof using two pages _after_ thinking about, and working on, the problem for seven years, building on decades of specific research combined with seven years of learning new mathematics (new to Huang, not necessarily new to the world) that might offer ways into cracking this problem.

jessriedel 6y ago
I suppose the title could be slightly more accurate by replacing "solves" with "proves", but I think it's fine. The fact that proof is only 2 pages long is highly notable. This is not a case of a headline making a typical event look more notable than it is.
rickmode 6y ago
"Simple != easy." --Rich Hickey The closest I get in my career is striving for the simplest approach to building something in software, which is not all the easy path. The easy path always leads to complexity -- just look at any enterprise software project that's more than a year to two old. I find the process of striving for simplicity gratifying and reading this article about similar -- but much longer process -- put a smile on my face.
- breck 6y ago
  The hard part about new simple things is getting people to understand the implications. Most people will shrug off something new and simple as the same as just another new complexity, when the implications are vastly different.
dstick 6y ago
In that line of thinking’s defense: do you marvel at the wonders of science and human achievement every time you switch on a lightbulb? The hardest thing in the world is to explain something in a simple way. With two pages - I say: Bravo!
ahmedalsudani 6y ago
Nothing clickbaity about the title. It says two pages without describing how much effort went into those two pages. Two pages does not imply it's easy. It implies it's elegant, which probably requires a fair amount of effort.
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  In his Lettres Provinciales, the French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal famously wrote: I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time. https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2014/02/03/270680304/this-could-have-been-shorter https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2014/02/03/270680304/this-...
- bidirectional 6y ago
  It's been interesting to watch the rapid degradation of the term clickbait, we've quickly gone from the original targets of the term ("Local mother discovers one small trick", "He did X, you WON'T believe what happened next"), to it now being used in probably a third of HN's comment sections to describe any title which is even mildly editorialised and not a longwinded statement of plain facts.
  - totalZero 6y ago
    ^^ the No True Clickbait fallacy Personally I feel that the mathematician should have used smaller font. Could have gotten it down to one page.
  - xmprt 6y ago
    If anything I think the term clickbait is used more appropriately now. "Local mother discovers one small trick" is terrible clickbait because most people are used to it now in the same way a Nigerian prince scam won't work on most people. Clickbait is anything that gets you to click on an article. In some cases, it can be good clickbait and an equally good article and in other cases it can be bad clickbait where the title states facts but the facts are misleading or require a specific interpretation or need more context or don't accurately describe the essence of the article.
robotresearcher 6y ago
I don't see anyone arguing otherwise, nor is the title clickbait. The concision and comprehensibility of the proof is part of what makes it remarkable. Just like the opposite size and complexity of Wiles' 'Last Theorem' proof was part of its story.

jessriedel 6y ago

I suppose the title could be slightly more accurate by replacing "solves" with "proves", but I think it's fine. The fact that proof is only 2 pages long is highly notable. This is not a case of a headline making a typical event look more notable than it is.

rickmode 6y ago

"Simple != easy." --Rich Hickey The closest I get in my career is striving for the simplest approach to building something in software, which is not all the easy path. The easy path always leads to complexity -- just look at any enterprise software project that's more than a year to two old. I find the process of striving for simplicity gratifying and reading this article about similar -- but much longer process -- put a smile on my face.

breck 6y ago
The hard part about new simple things is getting people to understand the implications. Most people will shrug off something new and simple as the same as just another new complexity, when the implications are vastly different.

dstick 6y ago

In that line of thinking’s defense: do you marvel at the wonders of science and human achievement every time you switch on a lightbulb? The hardest thing in the world is to explain something in a simple way. With two pages - I say: Bravo!

ahmedalsudani 6y ago

Nothing clickbaity about the title. It says two pages without describing how much effort went into those two pages. Two pages does not imply it's easy. It implies it's elegant, which probably requires a fair amount of effort.

smnrchrds 6y ago
In his Lettres Provinciales, the French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal famously wrote: I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time. https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2014/02/03/270680304/this-could-have-been-shorter https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2014/02/03/270680304/this-...
bidirectional 6y ago
It's been interesting to watch the rapid degradation of the term clickbait, we've quickly gone from the original targets of the term ("Local mother discovers one small trick", "He did X, you WON'T believe what happened next"), to it now being used in probably a third of HN's comment sections to describe any title which is even mildly editorialised and not a longwinded statement of plain facts.
- totalZero 6y ago
  ^^ the No True Clickbait fallacy Personally I feel that the mathematician should have used smaller font. Could have gotten it down to one page.
- xmprt 6y ago
  If anything I think the term clickbait is used more appropriately now. "Local mother discovers one small trick" is terrible clickbait because most people are used to it now in the same way a Nigerian prince scam won't work on most people. Clickbait is anything that gets you to click on an article. In some cases, it can be good clickbait and an equally good article and in other cases it can be bad clickbait where the title states facts but the facts are misleading or require a specific interpretation or need more context or don't accurately describe the essence of the article.

robotresearcher 6y ago

I don't see anyone arguing otherwise, nor is the title clickbait. The concision and comprehensibility of the proof is part of what makes it remarkable. Just like the opposite size and complexity of Wiles' 'Last Theorem' proof was part of its story.