First you ask how the hell someone could come up with this construction.
Then you realize it was this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Demaine
And then you read the abstract and realize that this is an improvement of an earlier result using five polygons (which in turn built on a history of earlier results).
So, still a great result, but not as out there as one may think.
I think it's also worth pointing out that in theoretical CS and most of math, it is common to list authors alphabetically. I don't think we have a way of knowing the relative contribution of the two authors. Demaine is obviously accomplished, but I find the kind of hero worship found in this thread distasteful and the facts don't support it here. Give credit to Langerman; Demaine surely would!
>former child prodigy
I understand the idea behind that phrasing but I'm not sure I agree with it. Are you no longer a child prodigy once you turn 18? I don't think I'd ever say "former intelligent child".. Would I?
Well he was a child prodigy, but he is no longer a child. A suitable replacement would need to reword the sentence to be about the same length and include that detail without the odd sounding wording.
How about just prodigy?
For this context, prodigy only applies to children. I'd never call an adult a prodigy except for they were a "former child prodigy".
Somewhere along the line you convert from child prodigy to genius assuming you maintained your ability above the rest of the pack.
This is why I refer to my wife as my ex-girlfriend.
Yes, child prodigy is entirely about being a child.
It's a little weird to call a 43-year-old a "child prodigy", yes. The phrase is left-associative.
The author gave a talk on this at Tufts during the FWCG last week. Fascinating talk.
One interesting question from audience was whether the ratio between the largest polygon piece and the smallest piece can be made bounded, as the current construction has unbounded ratio.
That's reminicient of the post correspondence problem. Is the PCP still undecidable for sets of three strings?
I don't think that is known. But the limit is low, something like five
I read the title of this paper and thought to myself, “What are the chances this could be Erik Demaine?”. And sure enough!
Erik Demaine always has some fun stuff for us.