|
| keepquestioning wrote:
| sidlls wrote:
| Tons of physics problems are problems related to minimizing
| some quantity or set of quantities given other constraints. A
| solution for something like this could very well provide
| insight into whole classes of unsolved physics problems, and
| thus to practical applications.
| eggsmediumrare wrote:
| Better this than quantitative finance or ads.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| Aiming for a "chaotic neutral" would frankly be an
| improvement for many people in the industry. Not even
| joking...
| graycat wrote:
| Yes, I saw that article.
|
| But I was surprised it didn't mention Plateau's problem, that is,
| with the minimization in soap bubbles, as at
|
| https://encyclopediaofmath.org/wiki/Plateau_problem
|
| or F. Almgren as in
|
| Frederick J. Almgren, _Plateau 's Problem: An Invitation to
| Varifold Geometry_, W. A. Benjamin, 1966.
| MauranKilom wrote:
| The article does not point it out (and I can't find good search
| terms for a source), but "real life" bubble clusters are not
| guaranteed to be optimal. There is definitely energy minimization
| going on, but it can easily get stuck in local minima.
| fuzzythinker wrote:
| Anyone know real world usage other than animation/games?
| Tangentially, what drives the authors into solving them?
| sidlls wrote:
| Curiosity; a desire to know the answer is usually enough for
| me, for the problems I enjoy working on anyway.
| graycat wrote:
| Motivation? Minimization is a large and old problem. In
| physics, some problems can be solved by noting that energy,
| momentum are conserved and maybe also minimized or _action_ is
| minimized.
|
| In operations research, minimization is a central theme --
| linear programming, Kuhn-Tucker conditions in nonlinear
| programming, dynamic programming, integer linear programming
| (early source of NP completness theory), etc.
|
| But more generally, it is nagging that something as simple as a
| soap bubble a child with some wire can create is so difficult
| to analyze with math. So, a guess would be that math needs some
| new techniques.
|
| However, none of that would motivate me to get involved with
| soap bubbles. I heard Almgren lecture, and then and to now I
| still am not interested in investing time in soap bubbles.
| Instead, I want a more visible and greater need.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| Predicting the minimum-energy configuration of any physical
| system that can be modeled with a cluster of bubbles.
| bdamm wrote:
| Wouldn't one good usage be enough?
| dvh wrote:
| Wouldn't the existence of the puzzle be enough?
| tux3 wrote:
| If we wanted to argue against, we can appeal to priorities.
|
| Despite the popular adage, human ingenuity is limited. We
| can distribute more hard puzzles than puzzle solver can
| solve.
|
| All else equal, if more puzzles exist than we can solve, we
| should solve puzzles that help advance our goals.
|
| If we can show more important problems exist, it could be
| possible to make a good faith attempt at trying to see from
| the point of view of someone who thinks some puzzles should
| be ordered after other puzzles.
|
| In that frame, the mere existence of all puzzles might be
| enough to justify many problems (even some "suboptimal"
| problems lower down the list), but there would also exist
| problems so uninteresting that their mere existence is not
| enough.
|
| (All that being said, I'm not entirely sure why I bothered
| typing all of that in response to a rethorical question...
| but I suppose you could see arguing as a puzzle, and isn't
| the existence of _that_ puzzle enough? :P)
| WanderPanda wrote:
| "more important problems", very slippery slope Edit: I
| also have the feeling that quite often "the shoulders of
| giants" things stand on looked like less important
| problems
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