Challenges to the assessment of time-to-proof of mathematical conjectures

DOI10.1007/S00283-013-9383-7zbMATH Open1316.62059arXiv1202.3936OpenAlexW3103984397WikidataQ122928054 ScholiaQ122928054MaRDI QIDQ393479FDOQ393479

Authors: Ryohei Hisano, D. Sornette 

Publication date: 23 January 2014

Published in: The Mathematical Intelligencer (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: What is the productivity of Science? Can we measure an evolution of the production of mathematicians over history? Can we predict the waiting time till the proof of a challenging conjecture such as the P-versus-NP problem? Motivated by these questions, we revisit a suggestion published recently and debated in the "New Scientist" that the historical distribution of time-to-proof's, i.e., of waiting times between formulation of a mathematical conjecture and its proof, can be quantified and gives meaningful insights in the future development of still open conjectures. We find however evidence that the mathematical process of creation is too much non-stationary, with too little data and constraints, to allow for a meaningful conclusion. In particular, the approximate unsteady exponential growth of human population, and arguably that of mathematicians, essentially hides the true distribution. Another issue is the incompleteness of the dataset available. In conclusion we cannot really reject the simplest model of an exponential rate of conjecture proof with a rate of 0.01/year for the dataset that we have studied, translating into an average waiting time to proof of 100 years. We hope that the presented methodology, combining the mathematics of recurrent processes, linking proved and still open conjectures, with different empirical constraints, will be useful for other similar investigations probing the productivity associated with mankind growth and creativity.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1202.3936

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Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Order statistics; empirical distribution functions (62G30)

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Cited In (1)

• Logical probability and the strength of mathematical conjectures

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