A Shinichi Mochizuki's ABC Conjecture and Replication Crisis in Maths

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Shinichi Mochizuki's proof of the ABC conjecture, published in 2020, remains controversial due to its complexity and the limited understanding among mathematicians. Despite some attempts to comprehend his Inter-universal Teichmüller theory, key figures like Peter Scholze and Jakob Stix identified gaps in the proof, which Mochizuki disputes. The discussion highlights a potential replication crisis in mathematics, where increasing proof complexity may hinder verification and peer review. Critics argue that the reliance on reputations and trust in the mathematical community may obscure genuine breakthroughs, while others suggest the need for more accessible verification methods. The situation raises concerns about the future of mathematical communication and the implications of AI in verifying complex proofs.
  • #31
People kind of have just been assuming that the theorem is true anyway since it seems numerically true, and we already have handwavy explanations for why it's probably true. People have already used it to prove many other results that we think are true but we are just awaiting formal verification. The only thing left is to actually prove the result.

I agree that handwavy explanations can be quite powerful in physics, but usually they are curated by fully rigorous math to confirm which handwavy explanations are actually correct.
 
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  • #32
Demystifier said:
It depends on definition of "actual understanding". What do you understand better, 4-color theorem or your best friend? Category theory or your favored sport? My point is that, for some purposes, intuitive vague understanding may be more powerful than formal understanding.
I don't think these are comparable.
Perhaps you missed the 2nd paragraph in my post. We need both kinds of understanding, they are complementary. The problem with modern mathematics is not that it uses rigorous formal understanding, but that it undervalues intuitive understanding.
We already use both types. But we don't replace a formal proof with some hand-waving and then stop. We still want the formal proof.
 
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  • #33
The situation with Mochizuki and abc is not a good one, but I think it is a mistake to regard it as an example of a "replication crisis."

First of all, if you read about the work of Yitang Zhang (e.g., the New Yorker article), you will see that you don't have to be a "celebrity" to make a major breakthrough and have it be accepted.

Secondly, at this stage, the primary problem with Mochizuki's proof isn't that it's enormously long and complicated. Yes, that was a stumbling block initially. But people did eventually take the time to study it. Several people independently ran into a problem at exactly the same spot in the argument, namely the notorious Corollary 3.12. The proof of this corollary is unclear to a lot of people. Now, what usually happens when a mathematician presents a new proof and people can't follow it is that the mathematician provides additional details. To a non-expert, this might sound strange; if the proof is correct, shouldn't all the details already be there in the first place? However, professional mathematical papers are written in a style that assumes that the reader has a certain amount of expertise and is able to fill in "straightforward" intermediate steps. This is usually a good thing because it draws attention to the crucial points in the argument, without drowning it in an unnecessary ocean of details. However, there is always the risk that the reader will have trouble fleshing out the intermediate steps. But it is generally understood that if a reader has such trouble, then the author of the proof will be able to elaborate and supply more explanation until the difficulty is cleared up.

Sometimes readers have trouble because a long calculation has been elided. But that is not the case with the proof of Corollary 3.12. The problem is a conceptual one; the terminology and the intended flow of the argument is not clear. One of the main contributions of Scholze and Stix has been to phrase the difficulty in a vivid manner. Roughly speaking, they say something like this, "It seems that this type of argument can't work. How do you intend the argument to go? If it's supposed to go this way, then here's the problem you'll run into. On the other hand, if it's supposed to go this other way, then you'll run into another problem. Which is it? Or is it some other argument? How do you get around the obstacles we've pointed out?" By spelling it out this way, they have enabled a lot of other mathematicians, who aren't necessarily experts in the whole proof, to understand what the sticking point is, at least to some extent.

When this kind of question is raised, one hopes that the response will be something like this, "Ah, I see your confusion. The argument doesn't proceed along those lines. It proceeds along the following lines. When I said X, what I meant was such-and-such. The obstacle you cited isn't a problem because of such-and-such. Here's a simple example to illustrate what I mean." But this is not how Mochizuki responded. For example, in his response, on page 43, he wrote that "my oral explanations, over the past few months, to various colleagues...of the misunderstandings summarized in §17 were met with a remarkably unanimous response of utter astonishment and even disbelief (at times accompanied by bouts of laughter!) that such manifestly erroneous misunderstandings could have occurred." This is outright ridicule of a serious question. By contrast, neither Scholze nor Stix has said anything remotely insulting or personally offensive in this entire affair. It is not just Scholze and Stix, but a large community of mathematicians around the world, that can read Mochizuki's response and see that Mochizuki has not addressed the very specific gap in the proof that has been highlighted. Even those who want to give Mochizuki the benefit of the doubt (and I have met some such mathematicians) will quickly acknowledge that a major objection has been raised that should be answerable if the proof is correct, but that has not in fact been answered.

It is not just a matter of a personal falling out between Mochizuki and Scholze/Stix. Several people, such as Fesenko and Yamashita, claim to understand the proof. There are others such as Taylor Dupuy who don't understand the proof of Corollary 3.12 but are willing to listen and put in the effort. If the proof is correct, then it should be possible for such folks to get together and straighten everything out. That hasn't happened. The circumstantial evidence is therefore strong that the gap is real.

In short, while it's theoretically possible that mathematics could reach a point where the trouble is that it's so complicated that competent and willing people are unable to explain their ideas to each other, this is not an example of that. It's most likely a case where there isn't a valid proof at all. Even in the unlikely case that the proof is valid, the trouble is still not the complexity of the proof, but rather the sociological rift that has occurred.
 
  • #34
Scholze wrote a review of the publication. It was replaced by the paper abstract later, but here is an archived version. Nothing really new as far as I can see.
Unfortunately, the argument given for Corollary 3.12 is not a proof, and the theory built in these papers
is clearly insufficient to prove the ABC conjecture
In other words, any Hodge theater comes in a unique way from an elliptic curve isomorphic to E. Thus, when the author later chooses an infinite collection of such Hodge theaters, he might as well choose an infinite collection of elliptic curves isomorphic to E. (Taking this perspective would however immediately make it transparent that his attempted argument cannot possibly work.)
 

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