From: nospam@nospam.mit.edu Subject: Re: Doron Zeilberger's Opinion Date: 16 Apr 1999 13:20:33 -0400 Newsgroups: sci.math.research Keywords: Graffiti -- program to generate conjectures in Graph Theory In article <7f5epa$29kk@odds.stat.purdue.edu>, Herman Rubin wrote: >Computers can go through many routine steps, but they have not >yet come up with a really new way of looking at a problem. Even >more so, can they come up with problems? Another useful reference point in this discussion is the program Graffiti by Siemion Fajtlowicz. This program generates graph-theoretic conjectures of the form "this graph invariant is always greater than (equal to, less than) this other graph invariant." Most of what it generates is either known or trivial or uninteresting, but sometimes it does get a "hit." I don't follow it closely enough to be able to describe any spectacular successes, but maybe someone else reading this can. -- Tim Chow tchow-at-alum-dot-mit-dot-edu Where a calculator like the ENIAC today is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh only 1 1/2 tons. ---Popular Mechanics, March 1949, p.258 ============================================================================== From: Edwin Clark Subject: Re: Doron Zeilberger's Opinion Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 06:34:21 -0400 Newsgroups: sci.math.research On 15 Apr 1999, Herman Rubin wrote: > > Computers can go through many routine steps, but they have not > yet come up with a really new way of looking at a problem. Even > more so, can they come up with problems? Well, I understand the program Graffiti has come up with a lot of interesting conjectures in the domain of graph theory. In fact, as I understand it, it has come up with conjectures that it could not prove, but human mathematicians have found interesting enough to write papers about. For a list of papers related to Graffiti conjectures see the webpage http://cms.dt.uh.edu/faculty/delavinae/wowref.htm set up by Ermelinda DeLaVina. ------------------------------------------------------ W. Edwin Clark Department of Mathematics, University of South Florida http://www.math.usf.edu/~eclark/ ------------------------------------------------------