In my previous post, I suggested several possible Polymath projects. One of them, which initially seemed to be the favourite (and was my own favourite) was to have a look at an idea I had had for getting round the Razborov-Rudich obstacle to proving lower bounds in computational complexity. (This is closely related to the P versus NP problem, though my idea did not obviously apply to that problem itself.) However, now I am fairly sure I have understood why it cannot work: somehow, even if you come up with an idea for a proof that is not directly ruled out by their result, you find that slightly more complicated arguments, based on their idea, do eventually show that it doesn’t work.
While thinking about my approach, I wrote what was intended to be a series of five initial posts for the Polymath project if it happened. I thought I would experiment, so instead of explaining the basic concepts in the usual way I wrote a dialogue, which I hoped would be easier to read. It is between three characters, who are denoted by smileys (or is that smilies? no, perhaps not). The main character, :), is a mathematical optimist, continually becoming enthusiastic about ideas that have not been fully thought through. The next character, 8) , is much more sceptical, and also knows more about computational complexity (a lot less than an expert in the area, but enough to merit a “cool” smiley). Finally, π is a neutral observer who occasionally asks for fuller explanations when π or 8) seem to be omitting them, and sometimes makes easy but useful mathematical observations.
To some extent these characters, particularly the first two, represent different sides of me as I think about the problem. However, I do not always agree with what they say (sometimes this is obvious, since they do not always agree with each other), and I sometimes allow them to get things wrong, or to think that they have had an idea when in fact that idea is already known. For example, towards the end of this first part of the conversation, π has the idea of applying the insights of Razborov and Rudich to other computational models. Not surprisingly, π was not the first to think of doing that, as an internet search later revealed.
Since I wrote the post about Polymath projects, the conversation has expanded and is now in seven parts of about 5000 words each. Be warned in advance that pretty well every idea that π has is eventually doomed to fail. But I hope that non-experts will find the failure instructive even if experts just find it wearily familiar.
I also hope that some of the later parts of the conversation might lead to fruitful exchanges of comments even if they don’t lead to a proper Polymath research project. For instance, at least at the time of writing, I don’t have completely satisfactory general explanations for why some of :)’s approaches fail. And some of the heuristic arguments (of which there are many) presented here are open to criticism. (Another warning: some of the early arguments are definitely wrong, even when the three characters appear to take them seriously, and their wrongness is pointed out only quite a bit later. It may be a little unconventional to explain mathematics by putting forward incorrect ideas and correcting them only after their consequences have been explored in detail, but there are plenty of conventional accounts of computational complexity for those who want them.)
For these kinds of reasons, it seems to me that I might as well post the dialogue rather than letting it go to waste. It’s even conceivable that somebody will be prompted by the ideas here to have better ideas, in which case maybe something serious could come out of it after all. I plan to post the seven parts (or more if I continue to add to them) of the dialogue at a rate of about one a week, to keep this blog ticking over until I am ready to start a Polymath project on something else. The first part is very much an introduction. (more…)
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