[math-fun] 60-Year-Old Maths Problem Partly Solved By Amateu
https://science.slashdot.org/story/18/05/04/1521239/60-year-old-maths-proble... Posted by msmash on Friday May 04, 2018 @11:22AM from the unravelling-mysteries dept. An amateur mathematician has made the first breakthrough in more than 60 years towards solving a well-known maths problem. From a report:/Aubrey de Grey, who is more widely known as a maverick biologist intent on extending the human lifespan, has taken the academic world by surprise after announcing a new solution to the so-called Hadwiger-Nelson problem <https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/may/04/60-year-old-maths-problem-partly-solved-by-amateur>. The problem <http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Hadwiger-NelsonProblem.html> sounds deceptively simple, but despite some professionals spending years trying to crack it, progress has stalled since shortly after the puzzle was first posed in 1950. "Literally, this is the first progress in more than 60 years," said Gil Kalai, a mathematician at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The problem is as follows. Imagine a collection of dots connected by lines. The dots can be arranged any way at all, the only rule is that all the connecting lines must be of equal length. For instance, in a square the diagonal would not be joined up, but the outer edges would be. Now, colour in all the dots so that no two connected points have the same colour. How many colours are required. For a square, the answer would be two. But the Hadwiger-Nelson problem asks what the minimum would be for any configuration -- even one that extends across a plane of infinite size./ -- Honesty is a very expensive gift. So, don't expect it from cheap people - Warren Buffett http://tayek.com/
Is this the same thing that Adam P. Goucher mentioned here on April 18 (Aubrey de Grey's improved lower bound on the chromatic number of the plane)? Tom Ray Tayek writes:
https://science.slashdot.org/story/18/05/04/1521239/60-year-old-maths-proble...
Posted by msmash on Friday May 04, 2018 @11:22AM from the unravelling-mysteries dept.
An amateur mathematician has made the first breakthrough in more than 60 years towards solving a well-known maths problem. From a report:/Aubrey de Grey, who is more widely known as a maverick biologist intent on extending the human lifespan, has taken the academic world by surprise after announcing a new solution to the so-called Hadwiger-Nelson problem <https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/may/04/60-year-old-maths-problem-partly-solved-by-amateur>. The problem <http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Hadwiger-NelsonProblem.html> sounds deceptively simple, but despite some professionals spending years trying to crack it, progress has stalled since shortly after the puzzle was first posed in 1950. "Literally, this is the first progress in more than 60 years," said Gil Kalai, a mathematician at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The problem is as follows. Imagine a collection of dots connected by lines. The dots can be arranged any way at all, the only rule is that all the connecting lines must be of equal length. For instance, in a square the diagonal would not be joined up, but the outer edges would be. Now, colour in all the dots so that no two connected points have the same colour. How many colours are required. For a square, the answer would be two. But the Hadwiger-Nelson problem asks what the minimum would be for any configuration -- even one that extends across a plane of infinite size./
-- Honesty is a very expensive gift. So, don't expect it from cheap people - Warren Buffett http://tayek.com/
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
participants (2)
-
Ray Tayek -
Tom Karzes