On Dec 14, 6:04 pm, greg <g...@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz> wrote: > Lie Ryan wrote: > > "You know what you just did? You've > > just found a problem that was supposed to be an example of unsolvable > > problem." > > > It has happened before, why not again? > > There's a big difference between an unsolvable problem and an > unsolved problem. In the cases you're talking about, nobody > had solved the problem before, but neither had anybody proved > there was no solution. > > In the case at hand, there is a proof that such an algorithm > is impossible. Overturning that would require finding a > flaw in the proof, which for such a simple proof seems very > unlikely.
It's more likely you'd circumvent the assumptions. That is, find an 'outside-the-box' solution. For instance, a deeply parallel architecture could escape the assumption that you can only compare two numbers at a time (per step). The proof's conclusion is still true if its assumption is. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
