3 ms·
I recognize that if a document were to be published tomorrow containing solutions to all formulated open problems in mathematics we will have gained very little
by Spacecosmonaut 5d ago
I recognize that if a document were to be published tomorrow containing solutions to all formulated open problems in mathematics we will have gained very little in mathematical understanding.
But surely, if we know that the dead ends of exploring a problem are valuable, we should be able to explore them even if a solution is already known. It just requires that the mathematics community reshapes itself. And it must. Two years from now people might be able to run the computation that solved NS on their Iphone.
I'm sure that whatever has been discarded during the NS exploration as a dead end you would be able to rediscover using purpose built tooling in the near future. The purpose of human mathematicians in the medium term might be to explore dead ends, and to provide human insights as context to attack other problems. But whether this type of work will remain necessary in the long term im not sure.