Re:To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics
by Ar-Curunir on Thursday February 02, 2017 @07:24PM
(#13556464)
I disagree. Look at 'simple' problems like Fermat's last theorem.
It took mathematics much beyond what was known at the time to get anywhere close to a solution.
Re:To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics
by isolli on Friday February 03, 2017 @04:30AM
(#13558752)
And much beyond what 99.9% of people will ever hear about in their lifetime.
Re:To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics
by gowld on Thursday February 02, 2017 @08:03PM
(#13556713)
> I'm saying one can make some progress without much theory.
Claimed without evidence.
Sure, you can make trivial progress by writing a computer program to search, and the problem is "elementary", but "elementary" doesn't mean "can be solved without studying lots of techniques and theories", it means "can be solved without calculus"
Re:To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics
by Frqy3 on Thursday February 02, 2017 @10:36PM
(#13557461)
A good example of this is Marjorie Rice, an amateur mathematician, who discovered four new types of tessellating polygons.
[0] https://mathtourist.blogspot.com.au/2010/06/tiling-with-pent...
For instance, compute the fibbonacci numbers modulo the square of a prime and compare to modulo a prime. Are there numbers where the first zero appears at the same point? We don't know.
I'm not saying the problem is easy. I'm saying one can make some progress without much theory.