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Want to Take On An Open/Unsolved Problem?
CexpTretical writes "The accumulation and focusing of knowledge may be the noblest use or purpose of the internet. There are plenty of open or unsolved problems left for this generation. Why not spend some of your time in the dark of this winter working on one of the big problems facing humanity? Open problems exists in almost every field of study. Wikipedia maintains a small list of them and at least one international group called the Union of International Associations maintains a database of open problems." Which problem do you want to see cracked first? Are you already working on one of these big issues?
Sounds like an attempt at distributed computing... without the computing part.
Log into web site, check out work unit, complete unit, check in results, rinse and repeat.
There is an assumption in this sort of thing that there is a large enough untapped pool of relevant expertise to make this sort of job distribution effective. Is this actually just a study on whether or not that assumption is correct, or has someone really made that assumption and is expecting success?
I have troubles believing that this is really an effective means for tackling some of the listed problems.
I can't believe that got modded "Informative" when the exact opposite is true. People, "Informative" does not mean "echoing my own beliefs".
Let's just look at the first empty thing said:
No larger than necessary
That's a pointless truism. In this context, proper=necessary. So, you have essentially said that the proper size is the proper size, giving zero information. Even a fascist believes that the state shouldn't be larger than necessary — they just believe that a totalitarian police state is necessary for order.
Perhaps if someone asks you what size USB connector is the proper one to go in a certain digital camera you will answer "One no larger or smaller than necessary". What a way to avoid answering a question whilst convincing airheads that you have done so!
Einstein may have been a patent clerk when he had his breakthrough "miracle" year but he was looking at problems for many many years and got to know a lot of mathematical and scientific literature in a less than formal setting
Einstein had a doctorate in physics, which included all of the grounding he needed to understand the problems of Brownian motion (for which he won the Nobel prize and which is to this day his most-cited work) and the issues with electro-dynamics that led him to relativity. He started with an excellent, formal, disciplined grounding in his subject of interest. His position as a patent clerk was useful because it gave him the time to work undisturbed by actual job duties (patent office employment back then not being much different from in our own time.)
While self-taught geniuses do exist (Ramanujan, for example) the vast majority of substantive contributions to any field are made by people with good formal grounding in that field. It doesn't matter how smart you are, nor how much of the literature you have read: formal education will help you learn the disciplines of mind and modes of thought that are the jumping-off point for new work. Nor does learning these things stifle creativity if you really understand them, as Einstein did.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.