Saturday, November 15, 2008

good vs bad news (also: post #500 ..!)

the good news: i referred, some time ago, to a crazy idea.

as it happens, it's not such a crazy idea after all;
it will prove what i would like it to prove.

the bad news: someone thought of it first.

you see: to implement this no-longer-crazy idea, i needed this one result. as i browsed through the relevant paper, i found out one remark which encapsulates the spirit of that idea.

so in the form that i've thought it through, my idea is unoriginal and worthless and not worth publishing. it is a two-sentence observation [1] and adds nothing to the body of mathematical knowledge.

i could always try and think of a method of proof which uses independent methods, but ..

argh--
what's the point?

[1] this is meant in the same sense as when someone has a "one-line proof" of a particular result.

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