When I saw this, my first thought was "Great -- a place to check out interesting open problems!"
But then I thought, if I had an interesting open problem, would I post it here? Probably not, unless I thought that I could not solve it myself. Even then, I might just keep it in my back pocket for another time.
A former supervisor of mine said that it is not the solutions that are valuable in research, it is the problems. Given that this "garden" is not heavily used, it seems many researchers have come to the same conclusion.
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2 comments:
Let me start by identifying myself, my name is Matt DeVos, and I'm one of the creators of the Open Problem Garden (Robert Samal is the other).
While I must agree that the Open Problem Garden has yet to blossom, I hope and believe that this is primarily due to our recent appearance.
You suggest that you would likely refrain from posting an interesting problem on our site, in favor of keeping it to yourself and perhaps one day solving it on your own. This is a common, very understandable sentiment, and one voiced by many people who have questioned the potential usefulness of our site. Let me offer a rebuttal. First off, I would point out that there are already thousands of open problems easily found on the web, so our site is merely a web 2.0 version of these. But why do so many people tell others about their exciting conjectures instead of keeping them to themselves? Well, in truth, any time you publicize a new conjecture or new theorem, there is a "risk" someone will take your idea and run somewhere exciting with it. Nevertheless, I am eager to share my ideas. Over time I have become more and more open with my little discoveries, and I feel that I have been rewarded tremendously for this.. I frequently get insightful comments which further my own understanding, and I have spawned numerous productive collaborations. The worst case - somebody builds on my idea and finds something wonderful - is actually a good thing too!
Full disclosure: I do keep a couple of ideas and conjectures to myself, but these are the small minority.
I'm somewhat astonished that you found my blog! I haven't ween writing for very long. Thanks for your comment.
I don't mean to denigrate your effort. I think there is a useful place for an effort such as this, but I don't think you should expect researchers such as myself to run over there and post every open problem we can think of. But, from your comment, it sounds like you understand that.
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