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Comment by runeblaze

i am not a complexity theorist but I am a CS academic by training (I never was a good one, but welp), and during my PhD it is often said that maybe P vs. NP an initial proof/disproof to the statement is not that practically important, e.g., if P=NP, maybe the NP -> P reduced algorithm is very very cosmic. P=NP by itself hardly proves that one would instantly design an AGI whatsoever. Often the downstream potential theoretical/practical insights/results seems more exciting;

> The NS equations are far,far,far less meaningful. Like I mentioned earlier, if you actually want accurate CFD, you dont even use them.

Sure. Consider this: in algorithm research often the most optimal algorithm in big-O is not the one used IRL; examples are numerous: matrix multiplication, LCA data structures, many variants of shortest paths.

An academic can work two years on faster-in-theory matrix multiplication that no one expects to be used in practice (in our currently imaginable univese). Do you consider that less meaningful than working on faster matmul kernels?

parent runeblaze 1 month ago

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