Sebastian_Hagen comments on The Least Convenient Possible World - Less Wrong

165 Post author: Yvain 14 March 2009 02:11AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 March 2009 05:08:52PM 7 points [-]

It says "There is no elegant proof". Next?

Comment author: Sebastian_Hagen 17 March 2009 07:43:43AM *  4 points [-]

Ask again, with another famously unsolved math problem. Repeat until it stops saying that or you run out of problems you know.

If you ran out, ask the entity to choose a famous math problem not yet solved by human mathematicians, explain the problem to you, and then give you the solution including an elegant proof. Next time you have internet access, check whether the problem in question is indeed famous and doesn't have a published solution.

If the entity says "there are no famous unsolved math problems with elegant proofs", I would consider that significant empirical evidence that it isn't what it claims to be.

Comment author: Dacyn 23 April 2016 07:46:01PM 0 points [-]

Depending on your definition of "elegant", there are probably no famous unsolved math problems with elegant proofs. For example, I would be surprised if any (current) famous unsolved math problems have proofs that could easily be understood by a lay audience.