“This was an attempt to produce something that was analogous to the periodic table for the elements, for all the groups,” explains Solomon. “But the special challenge in maths that you don’t have in chemistry, is that in chemistry no one tries to prove you’ve discovered every possible element. Next year someone might discover a new element and nobody would be embarrassed. But if next year somebody discovers a new finite simple group, a lot of us will be somewhat embarrassed because we claim we can actually prove we know them all!”
Da Rewriting the enormous theorem | plus.maths.org da cui è tratta l’immagine.
