DailyDirt: Crackpots Versus Real Scientists
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Over a hundred years ago, Albert Einstein published what would become his theory of special relativity, and since then, there have been quite a few experiments that support Einstein's ideas. That's the way science usually works. A- Vinay Deolalikar posted his "proof" that P!=NP a few years ago, but it didn't quite stand up to the scrutiny of some mathematicians -- and you, too, can dismiss an extraordinary proof by watching out for a few telltale signs. It's hard to refute everyone who claims to have a P!=NP proof, but there's a roadmap for how to avoid wasting other mathematicians' valuable time. [url]
- A. Garrett Lisi has a grand unifying theory of the universe, but maybe he should stick to surfing. Lisi's TEDtalk is amazingly devoid of physics, but the Large Hadron Collider may have the final say about whether "E8" provides any unique insights on the universe. [url]
- In 2012, Japanese mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki posted 500+ pages (on the internet!) that "might" prove the ABC Conjecture. Mochizuki refuses to discuss his proof, and so far, no one else has really been able to tell him he's wrong. [url]
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Filed Under: abc conjecture, crowdsourcing, e8, grand unifying theory, gut, math, p=np, proof, science
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Re: Re: Hold on there...
Part of the thing is that anyone who has worked in science knows that they could, at any time, produce an interesting idea that may go somewhere. Some of us are even lucky enough to have done this. When that happens, you don't want to oversell it, but you don't want to undersell it either.
There are rules to the peer review process, and you have to play by them. There is, in theory, no shame in having honestly proposed something that turned out to be wrong. Well, as long as you don't do it consistently. Unfortunately, the more significant the problem is, the higher a chance you have of your half-baked idea going viral before it's ready. So I feel really bad for Lisi, and somewhat bad for Deolalikar. That could have been any of us.
It's harder to feel bad for Mochizuki, because he did not play by the commonly accepted rules. Those rules are there for your benefit. You are the one who best understands your ideas. If you are good, then you are the biggest critic of your own ideas. But the bigger the problem, the more likely that there's something you overlooked. That's why it's up to you to explain your ideas to other people, so they can help you look for what you missed.
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