Tide turns against million-dollar maths proof

NewScientist ^ | 8/13/10 | Jacob Aron

[Mmogamer]

What does this mean in english?

[Mr Rogers]

In plain english, it means there are weird but smart people who worry about things so I don’t have to...

[patton]

P is not equal to not-P

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

Yeah, well, I exploded the proof the first day it came out. Guy forgot to carry the 5.

/obvious bunkum

[LibWhacker]

Wikipedia has a pretty interesting article about it. I have no special knowledge about the subject. Never understood it. Never studied it.

[lefty-lie-spy]

This mean theoretical mathematicians have nothing better to do. There is no practical application for any of this, except to build into other proofs that may have some theoretical application. Its the same as the Busy Beaver and Ackerman sequences - sort of. I’m not an egg head, but know some of this stuff. Just pretend you never heard of this story, and the world will continue to move as it always has.

[skr]

100 pages? Wouldn't 0≠1 do? Where's my million?

[Sporaticus]

HELLO! Previously useless theoretical mathematics is always getting dusted off and being applied to new applications. University mathematics degrees are frequently titled and earned in ‘theoretical and applied mathematics’— b.s. m.s. phd.

[krb]

P is not equal to not-P

NP is nondeterministic polynomial time, not "not P."

[JRios1968]

[patton]

LOL - Ok. I wondered why is wasn’t “7P”

[patton]

Apropos, I have actually seen mathematicians come to blows over a proof.

“Ok, 15-minute break - everybody go outside!”

[DrC]

"Wouldn't 0≠1 do?" The proof is about SETS of numbers, e.g. The set of Odd numbers ≠ The set of Even numbers For this to be true, there cannot be any overlap between the 2 sets, which we know is true in the case of odd and even numbers simply because of how they are defined. But in the case at hand, if there were even one known counterexample where P=NP, no proof would be needed. But since no known counterexamples exist, the challenge is to prove rigorously that there cannot be any such examples. That may well require 100 pages. I trust that if any Freeper sent you $1 million on the basis of your "proof", you will return it...

[patton]

Let A=B=1
Then, it follows that AA=AB
Hence, AA-BB=AB-BB
Thus, (A+B)(A-B)=B(A-B)
Therefore, it should be obvious to the casual observer, that A+B=B
And so A=0

QED, 1=0

[ClearCase_guy]

*ahem* I suggest they look really carefully at page 37.

That's all I'm sayin'.

[patton]

Is 0 odd or even?

[LibWhacker]

I’ve been snooping around looking for applications. It’s considered very important for AI, quantum computing, cryptography, airline scheduling, etc. So it’s way up there in importance and not just some abstract intellectual exercise for pure mathematicians.

[Freeport]

Yes!... :-)

Seriously, it’s even...