[r-t] Bobs only Stedman Triples

[Alexander Holroyd]

Eddie: everyone agrees that these latest compositions owe their existence 
to a combination of computer searches and human ingenuity.  What I think 
we are both getting at is the relative importance of these two 
ingredients, and I am worried you have things backwards here.  I really 
don't want to start a huge debate - I just want to set the record 
straight, lest other people misunderstand what has been achieved here.

You make it sound as if programming a computer to search for the blocks is 
the difficult and innovative part, while making use of the results is a 
technical exercise, requiring only "expertise".  (Perhaps that wasn't your 
intention, but that's definietly how your paragraph reads to me).

In fact the truth is precisely the opposite.  Programming the search is a 
standard exercise - people have known how to do it for at least 40 years, 
thousands of people know how to do it, and it WAS done 17 years ago, and 
the results made public.  "Making use of the results": no-one managed to 
do this for 17 years, while many were trying, and the solution is 
something entirely new and unexpected - it is clear that it is this part 
that is "the achievement".

I find your paragraph a bit like if someone said of Tintinalogia:

"It is certainly an amazing book, but the achivement was surely knowing 
what sort of paper to print it on, how to bind the pages together, and how 
to operate the typesetting machinary, and having the expertise to know 
what information to typeset."

- technically true, but it gets the emphasis entirely wrong.

cheers, Ander

On Fri, 29 Jun 2012, edward martin wrote:

> On 28 June 2012 13:15, Alexander Holroyd <holroyd at math.ubc.ca> wrote:
>> On Mon, 25 Jun 2012, edward martin wrote:
>>
>>> They certainly are an amazing discovery;but  the achievement was
>>> surely figuring out how to programme a computer to look for them and
>>> then having the expertise in knowing how to make use of what the
>>> computer had found...no perhaps you are right an amazing achievement
>>
>>
>> I don't know where this idea came from, but if I've understood correctly it
>> is quite wrong.
>>
>
> But you do know where this idea came from  you say so in your next paragraph:
>
>> As Philip pointed out, the computer-assisted part was finding the two
>> different 10-part structures (the two blocks of Johnson's 10-part and the
>> single 10-part block that cannot be joined by ordinary q-sets).  This was
>> done 17 years ago,
>
> Doesn't my adding:
>
> >>then having the expertise in knowing how to make use of what the
>>> computer had found...no perhaps you are right an amazing achievement
>
> suggest to you that I am in admiration of his discovering what as you
> say may have been there for anyone to see over the past 17 years, yet
> clearly was not so bleeding obvious?
>
> Best wishes
> Eddie
>
>
> and the blocks have been public knowledge ever since (and
>> in any case it is a very standard search taking only minutes on modern
>> hardware).
>>
>> Given that knowledge, the rest was pure brain power (and very innovative and
>> interesting).
>>
>> Possibly Andrew used a computer to confirm that the list of 148 extents was
>> exhaustive, but this could also be done by hand - the computer search would
>> be just a slightly quicker and less error-prone check.
>>
>> Ander
>>
>>
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