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Comment by itsthecourier | Hacker News Reader

may you please elaborate on why it is important, why hasn't been solved before and what new applications may you imagine with it, please?

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The short answers:

1. It answers how macroscopic equations of e.g., fluid dynamics are compatible with Newton's law, when they single out an arrow of time while Newton's laws do not.

2. It was solved in the 1800s if you made an unjustified technical assumption called molecular chaos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_chaos). This work is about whether you can rigorously prove that molecular chaos actually does happen.

3. There are no applications outside of potentially other pure math research. For a physics/engineering perspective the whole theory was fine by assuming molecular chaos.

> 3. There are no applications outside of potentially other pure math research.

I would feel remiss not to say: such statements rarely hold

In this case, what the research says is that the approximations we have already been using for a long time are correct. "You're already right, keep doing what you're doing!" is not generally something people consider a "practical application".

That's high praise!

David Hilbert was one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. Many of the leaders of the Manhattan Project learned the mathematics of physics from him. But he was famous long before then. In 1900 he gave an invited lecture where he listed several outstanding problems in mathematics the solution of any one of which would change not only the career of the person who solved the problem, but possibly life on Earth. Many have stood like mountains in the distance, rising above the clouds, for generations. The sixth problem was an axiomatic derivation of the laws of physics. While the standard model of physics describes the quantum realm and gravity, in theory, the messy soup one step up, fluid dynamics, is far from a solved problem. High resolution simulations of fluid dynamics consume vast amounts of supercomputer time and are critical for problems ranging from turbulence, to weather, nuclear explosions, and the origins of the universe.

This team seems a bit like Shelby and Miles trying to build a Ford that would win the 24 hours of LeMans. The race isn’t over, but Ken Miles has beat his own lap record in the same race, twice. Might want to tune in for the rest.

This kind of misses the point. The problem isn't interesting because its on hilbert's list; its on hilbert's list because it is interesting.

This is not my field, but i also don't think this would help with computational resources needed for high resolution modelling as you are implying. At least not by itself.

> the solution of any one of which would change not only the career of the person who solved the problem, but possibly life on Earth. Many have stood like mountains in the distance, rising above the clouds, for generations.

Whether or not this is AI, this comment is not true. An axiomatic derivation of a formula doesn’t change how it’s used. We knew the formulas were experimentally correct, it’s just that now mathematicians can rest easy about whether they were theoretically correct. Although it’s interesting, it doesn’t change or create any new applications.

Explained for the layperson in the video cited here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44439593

That video s very light and doesn't explains at what point (or intuitively) where the arrow of time comes in.

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