Comment by golly_ned
18 days ago
“ If the problem is solved next week, Williams will be kicking himself. Before he wrote the paper, he spent months trying and failing to extend his result”
What a strange, sad way to think about this. Academia is perverse.
Nothing necessarily perverse here. I don’t know Williams but don’t image him disliking the other guy or being unhappy with progress in general, but just being someone who truly challenged himself only to find him being trumped a week later; and kicking himself for that.
Either way, the week is not yet over, at least since the quanta article, so maybe no kicking will ensue.
I wonder how the researchers who supplied the tree evaluation algorithm felt when Williams supplied his proof. Dismay at having not kept their result under wraps for longer so they could claim credit for such an advance themselves? I hope not.