Harristotelian Logic

I see myself as a problem solver.

To me that means throwing everything you have at a problem until it is solved.

In doing so, I'm more than happy to attack conventional thinking, bend standard rules, or behave impolitely.

That last results because I've found it necessary to get information from other people.

I knew what I needed, and I didn't necessarily worry about playing nice to get it.

However, all of that comes with a cost, and I wasn't the only one that paid as can be seen by the uproars I've created on newsgroups.

My belief has been and is that the benefits outweighed the cost for most concerned.

Today, we all get to look at something that was actually always there, which is the simple proof of Fermat's Last Theorem for p>3.

Not surprisingly, the mathematics that forms the basis of this proof has an applicability that goes beyond it, and many new questions are raised about the fundamental properties of polynomial expressions.

My job isn't to explore those possibilities.

My assumption is that they aren't explored because understanding even some of them requires the mechanics revealed by the simple proof.

And I believe that the proof wouldn't have met the resistance that it did, if these concepts weren't new to most of you.

But it did meet a lot of resistance, and my next problem was overcoming that and bringing general knowledge of the proof to the world.

My posting has been done in a deliberate attempt to greatly accelerate the length of time that a new result like this would take to become accepted.

It is becoming clear that the desired threshold has been reached, so I see no need to continue operations in an antagonistic manner.

I have mentioned behavior by some of you that I felt was either a dishonor to yourselves and your organization, or was especially annoying to me.

However, I am a human as the next person, and I fall prey to my own perspectives, my own beliefs, and my own failings.

Therefore, I see no reason to push the issue about the behavior of any particular person.

I no longer intend to write any letters addressing such to anybody.

I also feel that mathematicians have behaved in a way consistent with research on human behavior, and that they should not be chastised by me as a group for simply being human.

So, I'm offering my wish that we can all move forward in a productive way, with little acrimony, bitterness, or anger.

I will do my best to help make that happen.

As a final thought, something that has helped me all these years is seeing life as a great adventure, and the pursuit of truth, as the greatest adventure of all.