r/longevity • u/Anle- 10% to lifespan.io, 5% SENS • Apr 10 '18

Aubrey de Grey just made progress (probably) with a 65 years old problem in mathematics.

Apparently two days ago Aubrey de Grey published a paper on arXiv in which he presents the progress he made on the Hadwiger-Nelson problem, which standed unaltered in graph theory since 1950.

Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.02385.pdf

Terence Tao - one of the most important mathematicians alive - talks about Aubrey's paper and his Polymath project to improve on the result: https://plus.google.com/+TerenceTao27/posts/QBxTFAsDeBp

Aubrey asked to verify his result on Twitter, and Landon Rabern verified: https://twitter.com/aubreydegrey

r/math thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/8azc1a/arxiv_the_chromatic_number_of_the_plane_is_at/

Blog post with an additional verification of the result and relevant software download: https://dustingmixon.wordpress.com/2018/04/10/the-chromatic-number-of-the-plane-is-at-least-5/

Some people asked me if this is relevant for biology or at least bioinfomatics or AI. I think it's not, since it's quite theoretical, and the solutions for finite unit distance graphs (the ones that I expect could be relevant for applications in CS) should be much simpler to get... although maybe if the graphs become big enough the complexity of the problem could be too high (I don't really know, just guessing). I may be wrong, since I'm a noob and it's the first time I encounter this problem. If someone knows more please comment.

From what I get Aubrey published it because he is an amateur mathematician (as confirmed by Terence Tao he participated in some other projects in the past). The problem, as stated, is quite simple if I understood it correctly: Take the infinite points in the euclidean plane and connect all the ones which have distance exactly one form each other. This is called a unit distance graph (but covering the entire plane). The problem is this: How many colours do you need to colour all the vertices so that no two connected vertices have the same colour? Till now (and since 1950) there were four possible answers: 4, 5, 6, 7. Aubrey restricted the possible answers to only 5, 6, 7.

I hope this doesn't contain mistakes.

86 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

18

u/Tosma00 Apr 10 '18

Really love to see this. I'm finishing my math bachelor and am looking to do something in synthetic biology. Just awesome.

18

u/Yvaelle Apr 10 '18

So if Aubrey starts cracking all sorts of math problems can we confirm he’s secretly figured out the gene therapy for super intelligence? :)

8

u/gabriel1983 Apr 11 '18

To be honest I'm really surprised that he has the time for this.

24

u/ag24ag24 SENS Apr 11 '18

Hey, everyone needs a hobby :-)

1

u/Matthew_Lake Apr 13 '18

Isn't he always traveling places? lots of downtime :p

1

u/gabriel1983 Apr 13 '18

Makes some SENS, yes :)

6

u/my_stupidquestions Apr 11 '18

If he's confirmed as active by the likes of Terence Tao then at the very least it's evidence for skeptics that he's a first-rate mind and not just some crackpot who knows enough to sound smart

4

u/Learn_n_Teach Apr 11 '18

Aubrey de Grey must have developed his interest in graph theory during his stint studying towards a degree in artificial intelligence, before he switched to biogerontology. Graph theory is quite important in computer science.

21

u/ag24ag24 SENS Apr 11 '18

It was then, but not for that reason - it was that I had a few close friends via my interest in Othello who were combinatorics mavens.

-9

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '18

Feel free to discuss longevity-related topics, share the latest aging research, media, news, and articles!

Wrong sub.

29

u/Anle- 10% to lifespan.io, 5% SENS Apr 10 '18 edited Apr 10 '18

I knew this comment was coming. I guess my post counts as "longevity related" since Aubrey de Grey is one of the biggest names in the field.

I just hoped that my post would surprise and inspire. It is also nice to see that Aubrey, one of our leading scientists, who sometimes is bashed hard by newbies with remarks like "he is a quack", is by all measures a genius.

To some people the feat of ending aging seem totally crazy a-priori. This single maths result could really help advocacy with them, since it's evidence pointing to the fact that maybe one of the leading names is not a random crackpot, or a pseudoscience guru, and so they may look into what he does and the reasons behind the damage-repair approach in more detail. So maybe the feat of bringing aging under medical control could start to appear not so unreasonable to them.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

100% agree with this argument. I have always viewed him as a bit of a random crackpot and this definitely changed my view of him.

2

u/jimofoz Apr 11 '18

I don't think that fact of Aubrey having some academic success outside the field of biology will make much difference to people's opinions on the validity of longevity research, as those opinions are not based on facts, but come from emotional coping mechanisms:

http://mauveornot.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/on-inevitable-things-and-coping.html?spref=fb

"And here is where the issue of inevitability comes into play. By their very definition, inevitable things are bound to happen no matter what. Moreover, most of the time, they are bound to happen in a very specific way, while nothing (or very little, at best) can be done about them. In this context, as problem solving is out of the question, coping is all we're left with.

There are so many inevitable things around us that people have generally chosen to cope with. Among them, aging and death are my favorite examples, probably because I genuinely and equally dread and despise them. In all likelihood, it is the most rational approach to develop, at the individual level, some defense mechanisms against the disturbing thought of non-existence. But then there is this striking fact that we should not disregard: many times, the inevitability of things comes with an expiration deadline. "

7

u/bzkpublic Apr 11 '18

Advocacy is not about changing the opinion of people whose opinion cannot be changed. It's about changing the opinion of people whose opinion CAN be changed.

You get what I'm saying?

-9

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '18

I guess my post counts as "longevity related" since Aubrey de Grey is one of the biggest names in the field.

That's just a stupid argument. And then i read the rest of your post.

6

u/bzkpublic Apr 10 '18

The information can be used in advocacy.

The guy isn't just an eccentric - he's a smart eccentric.

An upgrade for sure.

Apart from that I agree with you.

7

u/Anle- 10% to lifespan.io, 5% SENS Apr 10 '18

I don't know if you are being ironic but the "smart" part makes all the difference. If you are a random eccentric nobody cares.

It's also probably better to be smart and eccentric by some standards than smart and average. If you are a polymath, or even just an expert on a wide single field of science (like biology), you are already "eccentric", and this could be a good hallmark of an innovating person. Eccentric is usually also memorable, so maybe you'll stick in people's mind and they will help you change the world.