cousin_it comments on Open Thread, September, 2010-- part 2 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: NancyLebovitz 17 September 2010 01:44AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (858)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: cousin_it 21 September 2010 08:59:18PM *  0 points [-]

No, I didn't get it from Math Overflow. Do you, by chance, have the Manders and Adleman paper as a pdf? All versions seem to be behind paywalls.

It's indeed clear to me that SAT instances can be encoded as diophantine equations, but the intuitively obvious encoding doesn't yield equations with such simple structure, does it?

Comment author: Sniffnoy 21 September 2010 10:12:44PM 1 point [-]

I've found a copy. Have yet to read it so I don't myself know how it works...

Comment author: cousin_it 21 September 2010 10:19:34PM *  0 points [-]

Could you email it to me or put it online somewhere? My address is vladimir.slepnev@gmail.com .

ETA: received, thanks a lot!

Comment author: wedrifid 21 September 2010 10:37:30PM 0 points [-]

Another Vladimir? The distribution of names on LW seems to be heavily biassed. I believe that of the people whose real names I am aware of here there are approximately as many people named Vladimir as there are people not so named.

Comment author: cousin_it 21 September 2010 10:40:16PM *  5 points [-]

Yeah, Emile called us interchangeable minions. I'd say we are noisy, but not especially numerous.

Comment author: DanielVarga 25 September 2010 01:33:39AM 1 point [-]

When I first observed this strange coincidence, I thought that 1. there are many Russians interested in mathematics and philosophy, and 2. Vladimir is a very common Russian male name. But now I checked it and saw that 2. is not really true. Do you have some idea in place of 2.? Some geographic or demographic subgroup of Russians?

Comment author: Perplexed 25 September 2010 01:59:37AM 2 points [-]

Vladimir M is Croatian. So, instead of Russians, you should be looking for a subgroup of Slavs.

Comment author: Perplexed 21 September 2010 09:17:06PM 0 points [-]

Do you, by chance, have the Manders and Adleman paper as a pdf?

No, sorry, complexity theory is not something I am particularly interested in, though I have been following discussion of Vinay Deolalikar’s “Proof” at this blog

It's indeed clear to me that SAT instances can be encoded as diophantine equations, but the intuitively obvious encoding doesn't give equations with such simple structure, does it?

If that is clear to you, then you are way ahead of me here. Perhaps it has something to do with coding arbitrary diophantine problems into that simple three-parameter two-variable quadratic. But I don't know enough number theory to suggest how that might be possible.