2 ms·

Thank you for posting this. Important as SOPA is, I'd love to see a few more like this mixed in with the other stories.

• mcherm 15y ago
  I take it back. Now that I read this through to the end I no longer want to ask more posts like this on HN. Few posts like this exist anywhere; asking for them regularly is too much. This may be one of the best mathematical essays I have ever read. I see others commenting about one section or another which could have been left out, leaving a straighter path to the conclusion. But the amazing, intuitive leaps that allow to lay out the answer and then prove it are great for making professors look brilliant, but they don't teach anyone how math is actually DONE. In contrast, this essay motivated each tiny baby step along the way and illustrated how one might work out a new algorithm. That is even more valuable than learning one algorithm.