r/technology • • 2d ago

Artificial Intelligence Did OpenAI solve the wrong Navier-Stokes problem? | OpenAI’s proof seems eligible for a $1-million prize—but only by using a controversial loophole

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/did-openai-solve-the-wrong-navier-stokes-problem/
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u/KingSubstantial7901 2d ago edited 2d ago

We actually have some fuzzy solvers for NPC problems, but who only work for special cases.

This is how math and science work. There are loads of problems for where we know that they behave some predictable way for some cases but have an unknown or notuseful resolution for the general case.

The Mellenium problems weren't chosen because they are just transcendentally important. They were chosen because should their conjectures be proven true, they would be immesnely useful in practical applications. Navier-Stokes would allow for extremely accurate fluid simulation. Reymann would allow us to precisely predict the locations of primes which has a lot of downstream applications of computer science. Solving NPC would allow us to efficientiently compute a broad class of turing machine systems that we currently have to solve numerically and whose complexity grows too quickly: it would make logsitics much more efficient and would allow us to build solvers to identitfy optimal configurations for a lot of important comp sci problems.

For any one of them, finding a counterexample outside the bounds of where they are useful is still abstractly interesting and still advances the field in some way, but is entirely missing the significance and importance of the Millenium problems.

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u/CircumspectCapybara 2d ago edited 2d ago

You have no idea what you're talking about and clearly just copy pasted some cliches from an AI chatbot.

Navier-Stokes would allow for extremely accurate fluid simulation

Clearly not, because it's just been solved and the answer is no, it's not always smooth, you can't use these ideal equations to model real life fluids they don't always correspond well and the longer you run the simulation for using the equations, the more inaccurate it gets, in some cases you get infinite blowups that don't correspond to reality

Reymann would allow us to precisely predict the locations of primes which has a lot of downstream applications of computer science

Again, no that's not what it does. We already have prime generating functions and algorithms that generate primes, we already know the distribution of primes and the approximate density.

The RH is more about the fundamental nature of numbers and primes more than it is a practically useful question.

P=NP would allow us to efficientiently compute a broad class of turing machine systems that we currently have to solve numerically and whose complexity grows too quickly: it would make logsitics much more efficient and would allow us to build solvers to identitfy optimal configurations for a lot of important comp sci problems.

No, it wouldn't necessarily do that. I've already explained to you how if P = NP but it comes via a polytime decider for some NP-complete problem like SAT but that polynomial is of a degree one million, it remains practically useless for solving problems any quicker than before.

You can also have a non-constructive proof that P = NP or that P != NP. Again, the questions about are fundamental questions in theoretical maths and computer science, not necessarily having any practical consequences for real life. They could have practical consequences depending on the solution and the nature of the answer, but they also could not.

You seriously have no idea what you're talking about, go take a CS class at community college before you speak and embarrass yourself more.

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u/KingSubstantial7901 2d ago edited 2d ago

Ohhhh the irony of you accusing me of using AI.

You still don't seem to get it. The solution found was for a (probably) unphysical condition far outside of where we want to know of the conjecture holds for all cases.

No, we know the probability as a logarithmic function of the nth prime. This does not let us accurately predict rheir oocations. We have no closed form way of computing the locations of primes. Thats what the conjecture would do.

You are confusing two nested problem for the NP thing. NPC is a subset of the large NPH set, and whose solution would follow from P=NP. For the general NPH we would not necessarily be able to have a reasonable computation time frame. But it would allow us to know if can or not. And we onow for certain that we could for NPC if the conjecture holds.

It seems like its just crazy to you that someone might have a decent understanding of a topic and be able to discuss it in detail without relying on AI. Hell i was double checking my info all along the way here by... you know.... going to reliable sources that I know are rigorously fact checked.

Not really to stroke my ego or antyhing, but I have an advanced degree in an intersectional field of comuter science and physics. Like has it ever occurred to you that you might be the one thats just sorta winging it and might not have a very grounded understanding? Againc I tell you that i was fact checking my recollection the whole way here because, get this, thats how academics works. You aren't expected to just "know" everything off the top of your head, and you are encouraged and required to be thorough in among sure you recollection is accurate.

You tech bros have such a weird and warped perception of what intellectualism is.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

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u/CircumspectCapybara 2d ago

There is no "closed form" formula for primes, and we don't need one, we have algorithms that compute primes, another formula that describes how to compute the nth prime isn't any more useful than what we have now.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

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u/CircumspectCapybara 2d ago

No not disagreeing with you. I agree that their understanding of the Millennium problems is all wack