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?

Comments

really?

[macadamia_harold]

The accumulation and focusing of knowledge may be the noblest use or purpose of the internet.

That's your opinion. Midget porn afficionados would beg to differ.

How about somebody taking on the problem of ...

[kunakida]

how to list the world's problems.

Seriously. The database sucked.
If I wanted to find a problem to tackle, just finding a good one is problem enough.

How about getting the problems
-listed by multiple tags
-filterable by area of interest, and skillset required
-prioritized by relevance to science, to humanity, to marketability
-sorted by difficulty, number of extant participants

If you can't communicate why something is a problem, then you have two problems.

I read it on the internet

[macadamia_harold]

"What is the proper size and scope of government?" Yeah, good luck using the internet discussions to solve THAT problem.....

It does seem to be an out-of-control problem. According to wikipedia, the size and scope of the government has tripled in the last six months.

I swear this is not my homework

[StikyPad]

Which problem do you want to see cracked first?

The factors for x^2 + 5x + 6 please, showing work.

Re:One of the problems taken from wikipedia in eco

[UbuntuDupe]

Very funny, but I actually consider that the most important question of all, because if you know the answer to that, you can generate the wealth necessary to trivially solve all of the others. Look at all the nations of the world and observe what a huge difference the choice of government makes!

It's also the hardest because it's extremely difficult to perform a scientific experiment to test it. There are millions of variables to control, and uncontrollable, and you can't grab X governments at random and make them do something, dividing them neatly into control and test groups. (That's why it's hard for people to come to agreement about the matter.)

Could MMORPG's and realistic computer models of human economic behavior change this? Maybe.

Easy

[camperdave]

• What is the proper size and scope of government?
  No larger than necessary
  
• Where can government intervention improve on the market?
  In places where unrestricted market forces are detrimental
  
• Does a market failure necessarily mean that government intervention is warranted?
  No
  
• Can intervention make things worse?
  Yes
  
• If the government intervenes in a market, how should it intervene?
  In a way that maximizes overall social wellbeing
  
• To what extent is public ownership of assets and businesses warranted?
  To the extent that it ceases to be harmful to the overall health of society