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Re:The 17x17 problem solved by ntkachov on Sunday February 12, 2012 @04:10PM (#3583025)
Aside from being just interesting, Does this have and applications? It seems like it might have some applications in data structuring but is this just a math problem or are there actually people who are waiting on the solution?
Re:The 17x17 problem solved by kylemaxwell on Sunday February 12, 2012 @04:18PM (#3583053)
I don't know if anyone has been waiting on this specific result for an application, but in general graph coloring has lots of applications[1]. Also, mathematical advances often predate their applications (sometimes by a very long time). Not to mention that we know something know we didn't know before, and that's always worthwhile.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_coloring#Applications