[tgflynn]

I've spent a great deal of time over the last decade+ trying to find an efficient algorithm for NP hard problems and one thing I've learned is that this field is a graveyard for seemingly good ideas. Therefore I tend to be very skeptical of any paper that claims to solve such a problem but doesn't provide any empirical evidence that their solution works. I mean I've had hundreds of ideas and very few of them have survived without counterexamples appearing even for very small instance sizes.

I first saw this paper yesterday when it was posted on HN but didn't make it to the front page and I'm uncertain about how much energy to put into it (unfortunately my health gives me very little to spare). So far I've only read the introduction and it doesn't obviously involve any advanced mathematics that I'm unfamiliar with so I could perhaps attempt an implementation.

In addition to what I said above another factor arguing against investing much time in this is the fact that this was first published last year and nothing seems to have come of it in that time. Moreover it appears that the current paper is a revision from the one that was published last year. Does anyone know what the history of this was ? Were bugs found in the first version ?

[likpok]

> So far I've only read the introduction and it doesn't obviously involve any advanced mathematics that I'm unfamiliar with so I could perhaps attempt an implementation.

This is a bad sign for the paper. The prior cases of solving big foundational problems I'm aware of all introduce substantial new math. So much so that the actual problem is something of an afterthought. Wiles's proof of Fermat's last theorem is substantial.

It's not impossible that this is legitimate, but... it seems unlikely that P=NP has evaded proof for so long if the solution were straightforward. There are also a LOT of plausible-but-flawed proofs -- it's not unsolved for a lack of trying.

[tgflynn]

That's the kind of argument I've never put much credence in, otherwise I never would have even attempted to solve the problem.

I still think it's possible that there could be a relatively simple solution that has so far eluded humans. They are burdened by many individual, institutional and societal biases and I think they are far less intelligent than they generally believe.

[undreren]

Simple proofs are often only possible, because the language of mathematics become increasingly descriptive over time.

The language conveniently helps us make incredibly complicated statements by using specialized terms. Simple solution are rarely that simple, once we eschew the jargon of the field.

We stand on the shoulders of giants, and all that.