As the article had said there are two cultures in mathematics. At one end of the spectrum are mathematicians who are primarily motivated by the wish to solve problems, and at the other are mathematicians who are primarily motivated by the wish to attain conceptual understanding.
replyYou are clearly on one end of the spectrum and do not seem to understand the other end.
I am not sure this is either end. An obscure proof to RH or P < NP does not seem to solve anything -- seems to leave us right where we are -- that was my point. We would know a fact for which we could do nothing with nor gain any new insight.
replyYour point is still wrong then. The insight is in the proof process not the result. A human achieving such a proof would almost certainly be happy to talk about the new techniques invented in the proof, which will then be disseminated and studied. (For example’s Maynard’s proof to tighten the bound for the prime gap resulted in his novel techniques becoming course material in advanced graduate classes.) If you are in the camp of achieving new understanding, such a proof accomplishes that very well.
reply[dead]
reply