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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."

1 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.

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