Ask HN: What's an unsolved problem in your field?

#1

Post by Nirvash » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

There might be several different categories of problems, from the literal "unsolved" (i.e. mathematics / physics) to systemic (i.e. human resources / advertising).

Some examples that come to mind:

    Brand Influencer — "The Algorithm" prevents exposure, sales, etc.

    Customer Service — Explaining warranty status, other than "because it's the least we have to do legally".

    Mathematician — The length of pi is continually increasing, and there doesn't appear to be an end.

    Software Engineering — Thoroughly understanding a codebase in a reasonable amount of time.

Ideally, this would be less of a "here's why X field is bad" thought exercise, and more of a "that's interesting, I wonder if X problem could be solved" thought exercise.

Re: Ask HN: What's an unsolved problem in your field?

#2

Post by superhuzza » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 2:45 PM UTC

User Research - What's the best way to deal with loads of qualitative data? There are different approaches but all of them have problems.

Re: Ask HN: What's an unsolved problem in your field?

#3

Post by ggambetta » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

> The length of pi is continually increasing, and there doesn't appear to be an end.

Huh? How is this an unsolved problem? It's known that pi is an irrational number, so it doesn't have an "end". We can always compute more digits. Or did you mean something different?

Re: Ask HN: What's an unsolved problem in your field?

#4

Post by TomGullen » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

Perhaps in software sales, why customers didn't choose to buy. It's a lot easier to poll customers on why they chose to buy once they did as you have their contact info.

Re: Ask HN: What's an unsolved problem in your field?

#5

Post by dustingetz » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

Programmer here, nothing is solved.

Re: Ask HN: What's an unsolved problem in your field?

#6

Post by linguae » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 2:53 PM UTC

Here is a problem that I've been thinking about for some time: suppose I express using some type of logic that I want the shortest path between two vertices of a graph. Given this logical description of the problem, is it possible for a computer program to emit Dijkstra's algorithm or some other efficient algorithm? One of the things that have interested me lately is logic programming, but I'm wondering if there has been any research done on using logic programming as a means of algorithmic discovery? What are the theoretical limitations of doing this? It took bright minds to come up with the various graph algorithms that we use today, and so I'm assuming there's a fundamental limitation that makes it difficult to convert declarative expressions of a problem into specific efficient algorithms.

Re: Ask HN: What's an unsolved problem in your field?

#7

Post by inscionent » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 2:53 PM UTC

ggambetta wrote: post #3

> The length of pi is continually increasing, and there doesn't appear to be an end. Huh? How is this an unsolved problem? It's known that pi is an irrational number, so it doesn't have an "end". We can always compute more digits. Or did you mean something different?

Too much Aronofsky?

Re: Ask HN: What's an unsolved problem in your field?

#8

Post by btbuildem » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 2:55 PM UTC

Software development: how to make realistic estimates, and deliver a solution on time.

Re: Ask HN: What's an unsolved problem in your field?

#9

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 2:55 PM UTC

superhuzza wrote: post #2

User Research - What's the best way to deal with loads of qualitative data? There are different approaches but all of them have problems.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What's an unsolved problem in your field?

#10

Post by simonw » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

In Python education: Getting new language learners to a functional local development environment as quickly and painlessly as possible.

"Just use Anaconda/pipenv/the-Python-installer/Docker/etc" isn't a great answer, because they probably tried one of those six months ago, got into a weird state and can't remember what it did or where it put things.

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1987/