DARPA Challenge
At first I thought the problem list was a mildly amusing, handwaving bit of entertainment, but it turns out that the U.S. DARPA Mathematical Challenge has funding opportunities, open also to foreigners! And the 3 page announcement is the coolest I've ever seen, including the words
Submissions that merely promise incremental improvements over the existing state of the art will be deemed unresponsive.I feel yet another funding proposal coming on ... HAPPY NEW YEAR!
posted by Kea | 8:07 AM
6 Comments:
"Submissions that merely promise incremental improvements over the existing state of the art will be deemed unresponsive."
If only that attitude was more widespread in science!
Matti has been working on quantum biology which is a subject they're specifically requesting.
Kea, you might enjoy this article about the Pauli generalization of Pascal's triangle. It mentions quarks and preons and rishons in the context of the Pauli algebra, which hits fairly close to home.
Thanks for the links, Carl. I'll check them out tomorrow. I'm too busy waitressing this week.
Happy New Year to you! What a set of challenges! Number 22 is especially enticing:
Settle the Smooth Poincare Conjecture in Dimension 4 • What are the implications for space-time and cosmology? And might the answer unlock the secret of “dark energy”?
How nice that they put "dark energy" in quotes, as if it may not be a repulsive cosmic constant but could be something else, like a changing speed of light. We can start by simplifying the Ricci flow...Best of luck with the funding proposal.
Indeed, DARPA seem to have some remarkable insight into the connection between topical maths questions and the new physics. Will people be calling the U.S. government crackpot? Oh right, they already do that.... sorry, couldn't resist :)
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