"To my surprise, he replied that he indeed was aware of Blum's paper but didn't care to read it initially. But as more fame was given to it, he did get a chance to read it and detected a flaw immediately: namely that the reasonings given by Berg and Ulfberg hold perfectly for the function of Tardos, and since this is so, Blum’s proof is necessarily incorrect as it contradicts the core of Theorem 6 in his paper."

"In my opinion this definitely settles the question of whether the paper is correct or not (it is NOT correct!). It is also important to note that it seems difficult to repair the proof as the proof method itself seems flawed."

so We have "Proof" nr 117

yep its wrong

idolvon has also posted an exposition on the fatal error which was exposed: cstheory.stackexchange.com/a/38836

@JarekDuda who/ where are you quoting? @Fine thx :|

this is hilarious: cstheory.stackexchange.com/a/38838/46483

blum seems pissed

@Fine -1

yeah i know, but it was funny

i was reading an article published by The Register, i think, in which blum was asked whether the proof's validity would soon be confirmed. he said that it was "too early" to say anything

theregister.co.uk/2017/08/16/…

@Fine so begins mass media coverage. if hes lucky even big outlets like NYT might cover it, iirc as with Deolalikar. esp if it takes community awhile to come to consensus. but maybe that wont happen in this case... looks like everyone may get on same pg faster this time than with Deolalikar... & social media plays a new role this time around... (incl SE in that category...)

you must remember that blum is rather old now, and as they say, once you're old, you're free to do anything you wish even if it's wrong. since people can always say "Oh but he was old, so it does not matter"

Atiya also offered a proof for an eminent geometrical problem in old age, but it contained a flaw

Hironaka, a famous algebraic geometer, recently had offered a solution for the problem of singularities in the characteristic p (which is a very important issue) at the age of 86: reddit.com/r/math/comments/6aqwbo/…

Media coverage can be very messy - as I have recently found out on own skin regarding my problem with Google patent ( encode.ru/threads/2648-Published-rANS-patent-by-Storeleap/page3 ) - there were even headlines that my University goes to war with Google ... many just write without authorization and ignore remarks to modify.

@Fine nobody creates wrong proofs because he wants to "do anything he wishes". he wrote it because (as exactly in the title) he wants to prove P vs NP. as for his age, he might pass for middle age. there are much older researchers working on the problem. theory.cs.uni-bonn.de/blum/blum.var but your comment does remind me of this physics smbc cartoon smbc-comics.com/?id=2556 ... maybe for TCS substitute "P v NP" proofs in it o_O

hello @idolvon, do you think it's over? has blum's proof finally been nailed down?

@vzn, returning to particles resembling Couder's droplets, the main question here is field (e.g. EM) structure of our particles - but modern physicists see this question as too controversial to even consider: physics.stackexchange.com/questions/352546/…

@JarekDuda you might read aaronsons (kneejerk?) response to Anderson-Bradys seminal paper for some example of "establishment ideology" or "groupthink" verging on dogma... vzn1.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/…

@JarekDuda recent reaction to google gyrations vzn1.wordpress.com/2017/08/11/… see also fortune.com/2017/08/16/alt-right-google-marches-cancelled