Polymath projects

This is a page with background information on the polymath project.

Polymath: A large number of people get together online to collaboratively solve a problem.

Here’s where I blogged about it:

• A quick review of the polymath project (February 20, 2009)

• Concluding notes (March 24, 2009)

• Polymath again (October 26, 2009)

People involved with polymath:

• Timothy Gowers proposed the idea of polymath, proposed the first problem to be attacked (for “polymath1″) and the ideas that could be used to attack that problem, and used his blog to host the comment threads that were part of polymath1. He also has plans for future polymath projects.

• Michael Nielsen has been developing and researching ideas related to open science. He critiqued Gowers’ original proposal and helped shape polymath1. He also hosted the polymath1 wiki.

• Terence Tao was an active participant in polymath1 and is currently hosting another polymath (polymath4, on deterministic ways to find primes) at the polymath blog.

• Gil Kalai was a participant in polymath1 and is now hosting polymath3 (polynomial Hirsch conjecture) on his own blog.

Here is important background information:

Initial commentary before getting started on polymath1:

• Doing Science Online by Michael Nielsen (January 26, 2009), which inspired the polymath project.

• Blog post by Timothy Gowers (January 27, 2009) about whether massively collaborated mathematics is possible.

• Reply to Gowers’ post by Michael Nielsen (Jaunary 30, 2009).

Posts whose content and comments are part of the polymath1 problem:

• Background post by Gowers (January 30, 2009) about a problem (a special case of the Density Hales-Jewett theorem) selected for solving via a massively collaborated mathematics, which would be called “polymath1″.

• Post by Gowers on the procedure for the collaborative problem-solving (February 1, 2009)

• Post by Gowers describing a combinatorial approach to attacking the problem (February 1, 2009)

• Post by Gowers explaining his choice of problem selection.

• Post by Terence Tao giving the background of the problem.

• Post by Terence Tao giving his own ideas on the problem (February 5, 2009).

• Post by Gowers on possible proof strategies for polymath1, plus announcement of a wiki (February 13, 2009).

• The polymath1 wiki

• Post by Gowers declaring success with the polymath project (March 10, 2009)

Post-mortem reviews of polymath1, general commentary:

• Post by Gowers discussing lessons learned (March 10, 2009)

• post by Michael Nielsen discussing lessons learned (March 20, 2009)

• Can polymath be scaled up? by Timothy Gowers (March 24, 2009)

• A gentle introduction to the polymath project (March 25, 2009).

• Article for Nature magazine by Gowers and Nielsen (October 2009). Full citation: Nature 461, 879-881 (15 October 2009) | doi:10.1038/461879a; Published online 14 October 2009.

Commentary by people with minimal or no involvement with the project:

• Luca Trevisan makes some general philosophical comments (February 1, 2009).

• Tim Gowers and the polymaths by Ian Douglas in the Telegraph, (April 29, 2009).

• Polymath equals user innovation by Jon Udell of WordPress (July 31, 2009).

• An overview of the polymath project by Christina Pikas (August 1, 2009).

Other polymath projects under way or in the wings:

• IMO 2009 Q6 mini-polymath reflections and analysis: Here’s the original project and here’s the project continued.

• A polymath blog started by Terence Tao

• Deterministic ways to find primes — discussion thread (July 28, 2009). Also, parts 2, 3, 4, 5 of the discussion.

• Gil Kalai’s blog post on the polynomial Hirsch conjecture (July 17), which became poymath3: Also, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of polymath3.

• Discussion of possible future polymath projects by Gowers (September 16, 2009)

• Polymath and the origin of life (November 7, 2009), a blog post by Gowers discussing one possible polymath project.

• The first unknown case of polynomial DHJ (14 November), a blog post by Gowers discussing another possible polymath project.

• Problems related to Littlewood’s conjecture (November 17/20, 2009), a blog post by Gowers discussing another polymath project.

• Plans for Polymath3 (December 8, 2009) by Gil Kalai, announcing that polymath3, on the polynomial Hirsch conjecture, will probably begin around April 2010.

• The next Polymath project on this blog: some pols (December 28, 2009) by Timothy Gowers, with a poll to help him decide which problem to pick for the next polymath project to be hosted on his blog.

Polymath5 (Erdős’s discrepancy problem) initiated by Timothy Gowers:

• Erdős’s discrepancy problem as a forthcoming Polymath project (January 6, 2010) by Timothy Gowers, kickstarting the polymath project on Erdős’s discrepancy problem.

• Erdős discrepancy problem, continued (January 9, 2010) by Timothy Gowers, as a collector for further comments on Erdős’s discrepancy problem.

• The Erdős discrepancy problem III (January 11, 2010) by Timothy Gowers, as a collector of yet more comments on the Erdős discrepancy problem.

• The Erdős discrepancy problem IV (January 14, 2010), summarizing some recent developments and collecting yet more comments on the Erdős discrepancy problem.

• The Erdős discrepancy problem V (January 16, 2010) by Timothy Gowers, summarizing recent comments, making some general remarks about the polymath process, and collecting yet more comments.

• EDP1 — the official start of polymath5 (January 19, 2010) by Timothy Gowers, officially starting polymath5.

• EDP2 — a few lessons from EDP1 (January 21, 2010).

• EDP3 — a very brief report on where we are (January 26, 2010).

• EDP4 — focusing on multiplicative functions (January 30, 2010).

• EDP5 — another very brief summary (February 2, 2010).

• EDP6 — what are the chances of success? (February 5, 2010)

• EDP 7 — emergency post (February 8, 2010).

• The Erdős discrepancy problem on the polymath wiki.