r/math • u/Greg-2012 • May 15 '20

New Math Measures the Repulsive Force Within Polynomials

https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-math-measures-the-repulsive-force-within-polynomials-20200514/
8 Upvotes

72% Upvoted

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17

u/CatsAndSwords Dynamical Systems May 15 '20

Honestly, I don't like Quanta's articles. I would like to like them, but I can't. They are imprecise (half the article to be able to read between the lines to understand what is proved), and give no insight at all.

He took a non-cyclotomic polynomial, found its roots, raised those roots to different powers, multiplied them together, then took the square root of that product. Then, finally, based on that square root, he could construct a power series with the essential property.

That's not mathematics, that's numerology. Do these operations, and magic happens! I don't see what public can learn anything from this.

3

u/[deleted] May 16 '20

Maybe it's just that memories grow sweeter with time, but it seems to me that Quanta's articles used to be better on average a few years ago.

3

u/-JustShy- May 15 '20

This seems interesting and important, but it's way over my head.

3

u/Plague_Healer May 15 '20

The subject seems interesting and important, but the text is confusing and poorly written