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Mathematicians Crack a Century-Old Problem That's Perfect For Your Next Party
(www.sciencealert.com)
this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
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TLDR if you invite over 25 people to a party, you can know that people can cluster in small groups where everyone in the small group knows each other, or everyone is meeting for the first time.
I've read the whole thing and I feel like there's something that's just assumed that everyone understands.
What exactly is the problem? Why do we care how many people know each other or don't? I'm so confused.
As with many articles in science and math, the discovery isn't that "this weird thing happens", but that "hey, we can model this weird thing using this equation/model (that sometimes comes from a totally unrelated field)." Maybe in 10, 20, 50 years this discovery will become the key to understanding yet another weird thing, and so on.
"Everyone understands" that if you drop an object it falls to the ground. Yet we still don't fully understand how gravitation works.
I understood that. I'm asking about the problem with parties that this helps people fix.
no, the story in the article about Ramsey numbers is just meant to make you the life of your next party. try it, I'm sure people will love the debate.