An old but classic column by Bill Gasarch: http://www.cs.umd.edu/~gasarch/papers/poll.ps
Inspite of Luis’s “proof” this poll still seems as relevant as ever.
An old but classic column by Bill Gasarch: http://www.cs.umd.edu/~gasarch/papers/poll.ps
Inspite of Luis’s “proof” this poll still seems as relevant as ever.
21:11 on April 24th, 2005
So I’ve never heard of cohomology, but I have Mathworld to my rescue.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Cohomology.html
And you know what, their reference on this subject is this article: Rabson, D. A.; Huesman, J. F.; Fisher, B. N. “Cohomology for Anyone.” Found. Phys. 33, 1769-1796, 2003.
Now I start to wonder if I am one of their “anyone”. Maybe only physicists are in that set?
11:53 on April 25th, 2005
Yeah, I have no idea what cohomology is either but I just found that quote amusing.
It is a quote from Ken Regan from SUNY-Buffalo in case anyone is wondering.
14:13 on April 25th, 2005
Every once in a while I like to re-read this poll. It helps to remind you that, when it comes to P vs NP, we are all equally the ignoramus.
(BTW, after struggling through several readings a long time ago, I still fail to see how cohomology will help.)
14:27 on April 25th, 2005
I found the “Cohomology for Anyone” on arxiv:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/cond-mat/pdf/0301/0301601.pdf
This in particular does not seem relevant to Regan’s comment. (However, topology notions like those in the above did lead to a proof that wait-free k-set agreement is not possible, cf. last year’s Goedel prize winners.)
Perhaps more relevant is the following survey that Regan himself wrote about the ‘algebraic’ approaches to P vs NP. Enjoy…
http://theorie.informatik.uni-ulm.de/Personen/toran/beatcs/column78.pdf