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What are Magnus Carlsen's chances of reaching 2900?

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Re: What are Magnus Carlsen's chances of reaching 2900?

#91

Post by ska »

lake_vincent wrote: post #90
btwillard wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's odd that people can't work on something in which they're interested and talk about it publicly without being labeled a "crank". Sorry, there's nothing holy about the Riemann Hypothesis; anyone can add their input to the problem, especially on ArXiV and/or YouTube. You know, that's how discussions can start, and sometimes people want to discuss things with others. It seems like you might think only certain people…

It's not the discussion that makes you a crank. It's publishing a paper claiming you have solved something that you haven't even begun to understand. It's bypassing peer review. It's ignoring all the literature out there and claiming that is somehow a virtue. You have an interesting idea? Go ahead, please share it! But it's not productive to just start with "Look everybody, I solved it!" It just wastes everyone's tim…

I think a lot of people don't appreciate how open mathematicians are, in general, to work "outside the field" - it's especially baked into the DNA through lessons like e.g. Ramanujan.

This guy though, knows what the right way to present the idea would be, but for some reason (ego? knowing it's weak/broken? pique?) chose not to.

Re: What are Magnus Carlsen's chances of reaching 2900?

#92

Post by btwillard »

lake_vincent wrote: post #90
btwillard wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's odd that people can't work on something in which they're interested and talk about it publicly without being labeled a "crank". Sorry, there's nothing holy about the Riemann Hypothesis; anyone can add their input to the problem, especially on ArXiV and/or YouTube. You know, that's how discussions can start, and sometimes people want to discuss things with others. It seems like you might think only certain people…

It's not the discussion that makes you a crank. It's publishing a paper claiming you have solved something that you haven't even begun to understand. It's bypassing peer review. It's ignoring all the literature out there and claiming that is somehow a virtue. You have an interesting idea? Go ahead, please share it! But it's not productive to just start with "Look everybody, I solved it!" It just wastes everyone's tim…

> It's not the discussion that makes you a crank. It's publishing a paper claiming you have solved something that you haven't even begun to understand. It's bypassing peer review. It's ignoring all the literature out there and claiming that is somehow a virtue.

You've effectively said that people can't post things on ArXiV unless they're up to your unstated standards; otherwise, they're just "cranks".

Also, no one is "bypassing peer review" by posting on ArXiV and/or YouTube, nor have I seen anyone claim "a virtue" of any sort. Where are you getting all this? From the abstracts?

> It just wastes everyone's time. For example, this paper. It would take a lot of time to sit down and work through the math until I find a specific error in it. But the barren abstract and reference sections strongly suggest that would be a huge waste of my time and energy.

Well, since you've now admitted that you haven't read his work, it seems like everything you said earlier really must be coming from the abstracts alone.

> It just wastes everyone's time. For example, this paper. It would take a lot of time to sit down and work through the math until I find a specific error in it. But the barren abstract and reference sections strongly suggest that would be a huge waste of my time and energy.

Who's time is wasted? The random people who volunteer to read his ArXiV submissions and/or YouTube videos? Really, the only waste of time I've seen is your ad hominem comment in a HN post that isn't even about the author you're blatantly criticizing.

> Mochizuki pulled this stunt with the ABC conjecture. Wasted YEARS of mathematicians' time just to arrive at the conclusion it was all elaborate mathematical smoke and mirrors. The guy is an egotistical asshole with a messiah complex, and managed to burn a lot of PhD students by chasing his red herring. Not cool.

And that's why we must all attack Mochizuki whenever we see his name, right? Do you know Nick? Is he egotistical? Does he have a messiah complex? Are you just going on a tangent now? Are you just math trolling?

Re: What are Magnus Carlsen's chances of reaching 2900?

#94

Post by Quekid5 »

lake_vincent wrote: post #90
btwillard wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's odd that people can't work on something in which they're interested and talk about it publicly without being labeled a "crank". Sorry, there's nothing holy about the Riemann Hypothesis; anyone can add their input to the problem, especially on ArXiV and/or YouTube. You know, that's how discussions can start, and sometimes people want to discuss things with others. It seems like you might think only certain people…

It's not the discussion that makes you a crank. It's publishing a paper claiming you have solved something that you haven't even begun to understand. It's bypassing peer review. It's ignoring all the literature out there and claiming that is somehow a virtue. You have an interesting idea? Go ahead, please share it! But it's not productive to just start with "Look everybody, I solved it!" It just wastes everyone's tim…

Further, in certain cases (P =? NP is one I know of) it has been proven that certain types[0] of proofs cannot possibly work -- and yet people keep offering "proofs" of those bound-to-be-wrong types.

[0] Not sure if 'types' is the right word? Using it colloquially. Maybe 'classes' would be more accurate?

Re: What are Magnus Carlsen's chances of reaching 2900?

#95

Post by redox99 »

spekcular wrote: post #77

It's worth noting that one of the authors of the cited paper [1] (Nick Polson) is infamous for claiming (incorrectly) a proof of the Riemann hypothesis [2]. This case is somewhat strange because he's not the usual mathematical crank; he's actually a quite well-recognized economics researcher who is clearly mathematically competent. But for some reason he persists. (If you search his name, you can find his YouTube cha…

I think it's pretty mean and doesn't add much, to point out he was wrong about something 5 years ago (even if it's a very well known problem).

I certainly wouldn't like it if after submitting a blog post, the top comment on HN is about me being wrong 5 years ago.

Re: What are Magnus Carlsen's chances of reaching 2900?

#97

Post by spekcular »

btwillard wrote: post #92
lake_vincent wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the discussion that makes you a crank. It's publishing a paper claiming you have solved something that you haven't even begun to understand. It's bypassing peer review. It's ignoring all the literature out there and claiming that is somehow a virtue. You have an interesting idea? Go ahead, please share it! But it's not productive to just start with "Look everybody, I solved it!" It just wastes everyone's tim…

> It's not the discussion that makes you a crank. It's publishing a paper claiming you have solved something that you haven't even begun to understand. It's bypassing peer review. It's ignoring all the literature out there and claiming that is somehow a virtue. You've effectively said that people can't post things on ArXiV unless they're up to your unstated standards; otherwise, they're just "cranks". Also, no one is…

The standard being applied here is just that the work is correct. Polson's paper on RH is wrong.

It is bad practice to post incorrect results and not retract them when this is pointed out.

Re: What are Magnus Carlsen's chances of reaching 2900?

#98

Post by spekcular »

redox99 wrote: post #95
spekcular wrote: post #77

It's worth noting that one of the authors of the cited paper [1] (Nick Polson) is infamous for claiming (incorrectly) a proof of the Riemann hypothesis [2]. This case is somewhat strange because he's not the usual mathematical crank; he's actually a quite well-recognized economics researcher who is clearly mathematically competent. But for some reason he persists. (If you search his name, you can find his YouTube cha…

I think it's pretty mean and doesn't add much, to point out he was wrong about something 5 years ago (even if it's a very well known problem). I certainly wouldn't like it if after submitting a blog post, the top comment on HN is about me being wrong 5 years ago.

He has continued to update the paper (as recently as last year), it has not been retracted, and he appears to maintain the proof is correct on his YouTube channel.

We all make mistakes, and no one would really care if he admitted this. What makes the case notable is that he has enough mathematical training that he should be able recognize the proof is wrong. Especially after the errors are uncovered by others and communicated to him. Continuing to assert the proof is correct after errors have been found is bizarre.

Re: What are Magnus Carlsen's chances of reaching 2900?

#99

Post by qzw »

mattkrause wrote: post #79
ChrisLomont wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One person reaching 2900 when it's not by changing the scale shows their relative position to others is a new record. it's a worthy psychological goal, like breaking a 4 minute mile even though a minute and a mile are made up quantities. Or scoring 300 in bowling, when 10 rounds is arbitrary. Pretty much every record in every sport is arbitrary, yet people like to set goals for motivation.

ELO is a relative measure though, so it's more like winning a highly competitive mile race by 5 or 10 seconds, when the usual gap is usually under a second. It's still impressive as heck. One tempting comparison is Usain Bolt, but it feels a little different to me because he dominates both objectively (WR) and versus his competitors.

Isn’t a world record also relative? I mean, it’s literally “the lowest time (greatest height, longest distance, highest score, etc) that’s ever been achieved, compared to other human beings in the same event”. 2900 for Carlson is basically a world record elo score. I don’t see any arguments in T&F that a world record decathlon score, for example, wouldn’t be a worthy goal.

Re: What are Magnus Carlsen's chances of reaching 2900?

#100

Post by __s »

jedberg wrote: post #93

> Considering that draws at the grandmaster level are occurring 70 − 75% of the time nowadays, Does this mean we've basically solved chess at this point?

Solved is a strong word

TCEC shows opening lines which allow for AIs to best each other, maybe tournaments need to move to that eventually. It's what they've done in checkers

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