Comments on: Selecting another polymath project http://polymathprojects.org/2009/07/27/selecting-the-next-polymath-project/ Massively collaborative mathematical projects Sat, 28 Apr 2012 14:00:10 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Terence Tao http://polymathprojects.org/2009/07/27/selecting-the-next-polymath-project/#comment-2322 Tue, 10 Aug 2010 07:22:36 +0000 http://polymathprojects.wordpress.com/?p=54#comment-2322 I guess there is a _de facto_ project of this sort going on at your blog and at Lipton’s blog. But I do like the idea of putting some polymath resources behind it; we’ll have to talk with the various people involved for this of course.

]]> By: Suresh http://polymathprojects.org/2009/07/27/selecting-the-next-polymath-project/#comment-2321 Mon, 09 Aug 2010 21:52:11 +0000 http://polymathprojects.wordpress.com/?p=54#comment-2321 I wonder if it’s too late to start a polymath to examine/verify the Deolalikar proof of P != NP ?

]]> By: John Sidles http://polymathprojects.org/2009/07/27/selecting-the-next-polymath-project/#comment-83 Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:49:03 +0000 http://polymathprojects.wordpress.com/?p=54#comment-83 To extend a comment on the deterministic prime-finding thread, it would be good to distinguish between NP-Poly Projects (whose objectives are in NP, but whose success in uncertain) as contrasted with P-Poly Projects (which are pretty guaranteed to succeed, with sufficient resources, diligence, and skill).

It is easy to think of historical examples of P-Poly Projects … they include some of humanity’s most lustrous scientific enterprises … the Genome Project … the Apollo Project … the Manhattan Project … the Large Hadron Collider … and hopefully even large P-Poly Projects will be launched this century.

It seems to me that it is the P-Poly Projects that have the most scope for creating jobs and careers on the scale that our planet (not to mention our respective academic disciplines!) urgently requires.

For me, the very best posts on the blogs of Nielsen, Tao, Kalai, Gowers (and Fortnow/GASARCH too) are those that touch upon this theme.

]]> By: Lior http://polymathprojects.org/2009/07/27/selecting-the-next-polymath-project/#comment-74 Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:49:49 +0000 http://polymathprojects.wordpress.com/?p=54#comment-74 I think the “polymath ethic” needs to be adapted for selecting problems. Basically, selecting comments requires both wide expertise, considerable off-line thought (such as done by Tim or Gil with their proposals), as well as consultation with outsiders on behalf of the project. It is a “global optimization” issue, unlike the solution which involves many “local” steps. Thus my guess is thus that it would be better for some kind of “committee of experts” [self-selected by participating in a comment thread] to do this, probably involving the “guardian council” of Gil, Terry, and Tim.

]]> By: Terence Tao http://polymathprojects.org/2009/07/27/selecting-the-next-polymath-project/#comment-67 Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:36:18 +0000 http://polymathprojects.wordpress.com/?p=54#comment-67 Dear ramanujantao,

It may be best to post it on a separate blog (as per the second paragraph of this post). You can see examples of existing polymath proposals at

http://en.wordpress.com/tag/polymath-proposals/

If you are using a wordpress blog and add the tag or category “polymath proposals” to your post, then it will be automatically added to that page.

]]> By: gowers http://polymathprojects.org/2009/07/27/selecting-the-next-polymath-project/#comment-63 Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:25:28 +0000 http://polymathprojects.wordpress.com/?p=54#comment-63 Another thought about the selection process is that it might be better to select not one but four or five projects that we definitely intend to go ahead with. I don’t mean by that that we would start them all at the same time — far from it — but simply that we wouldn’t have a new vote every time we felt that a new project could be supported. That would have the advantage that preliminary work, such as setting up useful resources on the wiki, could be done more thoroughly before the later projects started.

]]> By: ramanujantao http://polymathprojects.org/2009/07/27/selecting-the-next-polymath-project/#comment-61 Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:16:52 +0000 http://polymathprojects.wordpress.com/?p=54#comment-61 For example, I have a proposal involving a quantum entanglement problem. Should I post it here in the comments?

Thanks

]]> By: ramanujantao http://polymathprojects.org/2009/07/27/selecting-the-next-polymath-project/#comment-60 Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:13:37 +0000 http://polymathprojects.wordpress.com/?p=54#comment-60 Dear Terry,

Would I be able to propose a problem for consideration of polymath? Or can only the three moderators of this blog do that? Where should I post the problem for consideration?

Thanks

]]> By: John http://polymathprojects.org/2009/07/27/selecting-the-next-polymath-project/#comment-59 Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:08:30 +0000 http://polymathprojects.wordpress.com/?p=54#comment-59 Dear Terry,

The thing is all of these projects depend on internet. What happens if there is a power outage and the internet goes down for days?

]]> By: Noam http://polymathprojects.org/2009/07/27/selecting-the-next-polymath-project/#comment-52 Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:30:46 +0000 http://polymathprojects.wordpress.com/?p=54#comment-52 It is not clear to me that the possible audiences of different “polymath” projects are the same. One could think of concurrent ongoing projects aimed at (nearly) disjoint sets of participants. (E.g. a polymath project in Algorithmic Game Theory will probably have a pretty low overlap with any of the projects proposed here)

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