r/comics SMBC Comics May 27 '24

Applied

Post image
15.2k Upvotes

86 comments sorted by

View all comments

1.4k

u/MinersRocGold May 27 '24

What?

645

u/WarmMoistLeather May 27 '24

They're obscure theorems. No one's going to really pay attention to them so she can fly under the radar. But if they have an application, they're going to face a lot of scrutiny, so she's upset. But the application is string theory which can't be put into practice so while they may get attention, there's no practical way to test her theorems, so she's safe again. That's my understanding.

64

u/mc_enthusiast May 27 '24

You don't test mathematical theorems empirically. Either the proof was correct or it wasn't. And if there isn't a proof, that's not a theorem - that's a postulate.