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Swedish Student Partly Solves 16th Hilbert Problem

Posted by timothy on from the my-calculator-is-broken dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Swedish media report that 22-year-old Elin Oxenhielm, a student at Stockholm University, has solved a chunk of one of the major problems posed to 20th century mathematics, Hilbert's 16th problem. Norwegian Aftenposten has an English version of the reports."

2 of 471 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I remember by red+floyd · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think that story is an urban legend, but if you've ever used Huffman coded data, Huffman himself used to tell this story:

    He was flunking information theory at MIT, and his prof told him he'd pass if he solved mimimal redundancy coding. So he did, and invented Huffman codes.

    <HUMOR>
    Of course, as his students at UCSC, we used to believe that his roommate solved it, and Huffman killed him for the solution (and hid the body)...
    </HUMOR>

    --
    The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
  2. Re:It's funny that college kids.... by pbox · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well (after being through myself) I tend to disagree with your oversimplification (even if there is a tiny teeny-weeny truth in you assesment):

    1. It was her job. (she is a grad student and a teaching asst, therefore has a JOB even if it way underpaid).

    2. Just the other day /. had an article about how most researchers have major breakthroughs before their 30s. That article offered several ideas why is that, like (simplified): need for show-off, extra time because of lack of families, etc...

    3. She is not a "college kid" as you put it, but a PhD student (she does not fit into the same drug-imbibing, all-night partying picture)

    --
    Code poet, espresso fiend, starter upper.