Talk:Karmarkar's algorithm
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Put into simpler english please!
Do you think any layman with a passing interest in super-computing can understand this? -- unsigned by 24.56.163.174, 1 July 2007
- Seconded. Mostly I am missing a section with examples. What is this algorithm good for in real life? --BjKa (talk) 11:08, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
Confusing
An article about "Karmarkar's algorithm" under the heading "The Algorithm" should present Karmarkar's algorithm and not something else just because the real thing is "rather complicated".
I don't really feel confident enough about interior-point methods to write anything for the article... I _would_ feel ok trying to give an explanation of Karmarkar's algorithm here in the discussion section first for review by some senior mathematicians... Does anyone feel like volunteering for fact checking anything I might put together? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.75.149.134 (talk) 21:39, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Inaccurate
This article is describing the affine-scaling algorithm, not Karmarkar's projective algorithm. Even the canonical form is lost, as are all the geometric ideas!
This is a better source.
- Strang, Gilbert (1987). "Karmarkar's algorithm and its place in applied mathematics". The Mathematical Intelligencer. 9 (2). New York: Springer: 4–10. doi:10.1007/BF03025891. ISSN 0343-6993. MR '''883185'''.
{{cite journal}}: Check|mr=value (help); Invalid|ref=harv(help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help)
-- Kiefer.Wolfowitz 01:55, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Paragraph about patent law
PraeceptorIP (talk · contribs) has been pushing to include a paragraph on patent law in this article, about how "mathematics cannot be patented"; see e.g. this diff. My position is that this has not been tested against the Karmarkar patent (and will not ever be tested because the patent has expired) and therefore that its relevance here is original research by synthesis, not allowed without reliable sources that directly connect this case to Karmarkar's patent. But as always I welcome additional opinions. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:46, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you for stating your views, David. The title of this section of the article is "Patent controversy — Can mathematics be patented?" Until a few days ago, this part of the article contained no discussion of whether mathematics can be patented and no answer to the question posed in the section heading. Yet, the US Supreme Court has definitively answered the question and several of its decisions (quoted in the text to which you object) give a firm NO answer. The article as it stood was confusing or misleading, because it posed a question and indicated (wrongly) that the question was unresolved.
- You state that the question "has not been tested against the Karmarkar patent (and will not ever be tested because the patent has expired). The question does not need to be tested against the expired Karmarkar patent. That is not how the law works. If it is indisputable that algorithms cannot be validly patented (as the Supreme Court has ruled in the cited cases), and it is undisputed that the Karmarkar Algorithm is an algorithm, then the Karmarkar Algorithm patent is not a valid patent, at least to the extent that it claims an algorithm as such. When the law is clear that all X's are Y, then any instance of X is Y. That is not synthesis or original research. It is just common sense, not OR or synthesis.
- Nobody with any knowledge of patent law thinks that mathematics can be patented. It makes no difference that this patent has expired. The general rule applies. The Supreme Court has said over and over again that natural laws, like the Pythagorean Theorem, for example, belong to the public domain and therefore cannot be patented. They are the tools of scientific progress and it would be contrary to the public interest to allow a monopoly on them.
- I am therefore reverting your last undo because the rule in Wikipedia is that you let the disputed text of the article stand until there is a consensus to remove it. This material is well sourced and any person with knowledge of patent law would agree with it. There is as yet no consensus to remove it. — PraeceptorIP (talk) 20:05, 6 December 2016 (UTC)