New Short Cut Found for Long Math Proofs (1992)

These types of articles are always frustrating, in that they very rarely provide an even halfway decent explanation of the math or science involved (if they do, it is buried deep), and are instead little more than a repetitive explanation of the importance of the work, judged by quotes from as many people as humanly possible. This article (which says very little) is still probably too long with all the fluff added around the actual discovery.

This is about the PCP theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCP_theorem

An interesting application are SNARKs, a fully generic type of non interactive zero knowledge proof of knowledge. They can be used to preserve transaction privacy and fungibility in cryptocurrencies for instance.

Is this the paper they're talking about? http://people.csail.mit.edu/madhu/papers/1992/almss-conf.pdf

So it's 23 years passed and are there any practical implementations that mathematicians would use?

Since this work can be applied only to proofs that were recorded in machine-readable format (like Mizar), I suppose it's much harder _to record_ a proof in machine-readable format, than to really go ahead and check all the pages manually.

>As is the custom in mathematics and theoretical computer science, the result gains credibility not by having been sent to a journal and reviewed by other scientists but by having been vouched for by leaders in the field

WTF?

I hate to admit my inability to convince myself that this wasn't an April fool's joke!

I never had Motwani as a professor but I've only heard good things about him. RIP.

Not sure why this is on the front page today.