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reikonomushatoday at 6:30 AM1 replyview on HN

Arnold (as reported by Goldmakher [1]) does prove the unsolvability of the quintic in finite terms of arithmetic and single-valued continuous functions (which does not include the complex logarithm). TFA's result is stronger, which is something about the solvability of the monodromy groups of all EML-derived functions. So it doesn't seem to be a "rehash", even if their specific counterexample could have been achieved either in fewer steps or with less machinery.

[1] https://web.williams.edu/Mathematics/lg5/394/ArnoldQuintic.p...


Replies

saithoundtoday at 6:52 AM

Arnold's proof can be used to show that certain classes of functions are insufficient to express a quintic formula.

These classes can always safely include all single-valued continuous functions (you cannot even write the _quadratic_ formula in terms of arithmetic and single-valued continuous functions!), but also plenty of non-single-valued functions (e.g. the +-sqrt function which appears in the well-known quadratic formula).

Applying Arnold's proof to the class given by arithmetic and all complex nth root functions (also multivalued) gives the usual Abel-Ruffini theorem. But Arnold's proof applies to the class "all elm-expressible functions" without modification.