Este posting es mas que todo para viejitos inteligentes, a m=ED me hizo
palpitar el coraz=F3n de emoci=F3n. Espero que igual suceda con Uds.
En resumen, demuestra que estar viejo no es un impedimento para hacer
grandes cosas con la inteligencia. Puede que en otras cosas uno falle,
**** ejemplo, es probalble que uno no pueda hacer el amor cinco veces
en un d=EDa, como cuando era joven, pero ser viejo tiene sus
compensaciones cuando ese trata de usar la inteligencia.
El viejito de la historia es ruso y posiblemente socialista y jud=EDo
(no he chequeado). Vive en Israel.
------------------------------------
63-year-old solves riddle from 1970
Israeli mathematician unravels puzzle that baffled scientists for
decades
Most popular
JERUSALEM - A mathematical puzzle that baffled the top minds in the
esoteric field of symbolic dynamics for nearly four decades has been
cracked -- by a 63-year-old immigrant who once had to work as a
security guard.
Avraham Trahtman, a mathematician who also toiled as a laborer after
moving to Israel from Russia, succeeded where dozens failed, solving
the elusive "Road Coloring Problem."
The conjecture essentially assumed it's possible to create a
"universal map" that can direct people to arrive at a certain
destination, at the same time, regardless of starting point. Experts
say the proposition could have real-life applications in mapping and
computer science.
The "Road Coloring Problem" was first posed in 1970 by Benjamin Weiss,
an Israeli-American mathematician, and a colleague, Roy Adler, who
worked at IBM at the time.
For eight years, Weiss tried to prove his theory. Over the next 30
years, some 100 other scientists attempted as well. All failed, until
Trahtman came along and, in eight short pages, jotted the solution
down in pencil last year.
"The solution is not that complicated. It's hard, but it is not that
complicated," Trahtman said in heavily accented Hebrew. "Some people
think they need to be complicated. I think they need to be nice and
simple."
Weiss said it gave him great joy to see someone solve his problem.
Stuart Margolis, a mathematician who recruited Trahtman to teach at
Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, called the solution one of the
"beautiful results." But he said what makes the result especially
remarkable is Trahtman's age and background.
"Math is usually a younger person's game, like music and the arts,"
Margolis said. "Usually you do your better work in your mid 20s and
early 30s. He certainly came up with a good one at age 63."
Adding to the excitement is Trahtman's personal triumph in finally
finding work as a mathematician after immigrating from Russia. "The
first time I met him he was wearing a night watchman's uniform,"
Margolis said.
Originally from Yekaterinburg, Russia, Trahtman was an accomplished
mathematician when he came to Israel in 1992, at age 48. But like many
immigrants in the wave that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union,
he struggled to find work in the Jewish state and was forced into
stints working maintenance and security before landing a teaching
position at Bar Ilan in 1995.
The soft-spoken Trahtman declined to talk about his odyssey, calling
that the "old days." He said he felt "lucky" to be recognized for his
solution, and played down the achievement as a "matter for
mathematicians," saying it hasn't changed him a bit.
The puzzle tackled by Trahtman wasn't the longest-standing open
problem to be solved recently. In 1994, British mathematician Andrew
Wiles solved Fermat's last theorem, which had been open for more than
300 years.
Trahtman's solution is available on the Internet and is to be
published soon in the Israel Journal of Mathematics.
Joel Friedman, a math professor at the University of British Columbia,
said probably everyone in the field of symbolic dynamics had tried to
solve the problem at some point, including himself. He said people in
the related disciplines of graph theory, discrete math and theoretical
computer science also tried.
"The solution to this problem has definitely generated excitement in
the mathematical community," he said in an e-mail.
Margolis said the solution could have many applications.
"Say you've lost an e-mail and you want to get it back -- it would be
guaranteed," he said. "Let's say you are lost in a town you have never
been in before and you have to get to a friend's house and there are
no street signs -- the directions will work no matter what."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23729600/
--------------------------
Einstein dec=EDa que la imaginaci=F3n era lo mas im****tante y **** los
resultados, es obvio que el se=F1or vi=F3 lo que otros no ven y lo pudo
explicar en solo ocho p=E1ginas.
T.Schmidt
P.S. Dicen que los que no se usa, se atrofia y parece que al final de
cuentas eso es lo que hace la diferencia.
|
