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A comment on Ask HN: Wanted: Elementary but surprising group theory result ....

Re:Ask HN: Wanted: Elementary but surprising group theory re... by jonp on Friday February 11, 2011 @05:53PM (#2208523)
How about the result concerning finding the roots of polynomials; that there are increasingly complex exact and explicit formulae as you go from linear to quartic, but it's impossible to find such formulae for quintics or higher.

I don't know if that fits your needs: it's elementary to state, but not exactly elementary to prove.

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Re:Ask HN: Wanted: Elementary but surprising group theory re... by RiderOfGiraffes on Saturday February 12, 2011 @01:34AM (#2209492)
Lovely result, but as you expect, not really sufficiently elementary. Also, while mathematicians find impossibility proofs among the most useful results, non-mathematicians are usually more impressed by results that show something unexpected is possible.

But I'll keep it in mind.

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