Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Massive Open Collaboration In Math Declared a Success

Posted by timothy on from the you-count-the-feet-we'll-count-the-toes dept.

nanopolitan writes "In late January, Tim Gowers, a Fields Medal winner at Cambridge University, used his blog for an experiment in massive online collaboration for solving a significant problem in math — combinatorial proof of the density Hales-Jewett theorem. Some six weeks (and nearly 1000 comments) later, Gowers has declared the project a success, and some of the ideas have already been written up as a preprint."

3 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Too bad he used a blog by bendytendril · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I read TFA (I didn't understand it, but at least I read it). The entire discussion was a typical linear blog where they had keep numbering items and referring back to them (i.e. "regarding item #32 I think....")

    What he really needed is a threaded message board ala Slashdot.

    --
    sig: pv qid
  2. Why now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It would have been nice, had this been posted before they declared success.

    Now all we have is a blog post with a gazillion comments, and all the interesting work has already been done.

    Maybe next time we can all join the fun?

  3. Re:It's about n-dimensional tic-tac-toe. by kramulous · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If that is the interpretation, then where is the crossover point between lower dimensional and higher dimensional space where the draws stop?

    --
    .