Mathematicians Race To Debunk German Man Who Claimed To Solve The 'P Versus NP' Problem (vice.com)

A German man -- Norbert Blum -- who claimed that P is not equal to NP is seeing several challenges to his solution. From a report: Numerous mathematicians have begun to raise questions about whether the German mathematician solved it at all. Since Blum's paper was published, mathematicians and computer scientists worldwide have been racking their brains as to whether the Bonn-based researcher has, in fact, solved this Millennium Prize Problem. After an initially positive reaction, such as the one from Stanford mathematician Reza Zadeh, doubts are beginning to arise about whether Blum's reasoning is correct. In a forum for theoretical mathematics, a user named Mikhail reached out to Alexander Razborov -- the author of the paper on which Blum's proof is based -- to ask him about Blum's paper. Razborov purports to have discovered an error in Blum's paper: Blum's main argument contradicts one of Razborov's key assumptions. And mathematician Scott Aaronson, who is something of an authority in the math community when it comes to P vs. NP, said he would be willing to bet $200,000 that Blum's mathematical proof won't endure. "Please stop asking," Aaronson writes. If the proof hasn't been refuted, "you can come back and tell me I was a closed-minded fool." In the week since Aaronson's initial blog post, other mathematicians have begun trying to poke holes in Blum's proof. Dick Lipton, a computer science professor at Georgia Tech, wrote in a blog post that Blum's proof "passes many filters of seriousness," but suggested there may be some problems with it. A commenter on that blog post, known only as "vloodin," noted that there was a "single error on a subtle point" in the proof; other mathematicians have since chimed in and confirmed vloodin's initial analysis, and so the emerging consensus among many mathematicians is that a solve for P vs. NP remains elusive.

Comments

Debunk a German? That's easy!

[CajunArson]

Just call him a NAZI and make sure to launch a blanket campaign to ruin the lives of anyone who not only agrees with him, but anyone who fails to claim that they'll violent beat him to death if given the chance!

If you disagree with this post in any way then you are clearly one of them too.

Yeah! That figures

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

These mathematicians! They sit on their bums all day and twiddle their thumbs. Not doing a single thing. Then someone actually does something. They are all aflutter now. "Mathematician doing something! Abomination! Must be stopped". Do something concrete for a change Mathematicians. This is probably why there is no Nobel prize for math.