Harristotelian Logic

The supposed answer to someone claiming fraud is for them to prove it. And with mathematics it should be easy, put out a mathematical proof.

But who does society expect to check it?

Mathematicians.

So, for the sake of argument, let's imagine that widespread fraud and corruption were now a part of math society--just for the sake of argument--and say that someone were trying to expose this fraud, and they said they had proof.

Well, who would check it?

Mathematicians.

Get it now?

Yes, physicists could be tasked to check such a proof, but they'd have to be so tasked.

Now I know how hard it is to push this position as I do have proofs. One paper of mine actually did get past the gatekeepers and was published in an electronic math journal.

Someone posted that on the sci.math newsgroup and members of that Usenet community got together, posting out a strategy of emailing the journal, and when they did, the journal yanked my paper.

There is a lot wrong with that story.

Supposedly the journal process has a certain amount of solidity associated with it, but my paper was yanked overnight, immediately after some emails from sci.math posters.

That speaks of social power in math society.

The journal had my paper for nine months, but yanked it overnight?

That journal is now gone, which is also weird, but you can see some evidence still on one of its mirror sites:

http://www.emis.de/journals/SWJPAM/vol2-03.html

And why did the journal shutdown?

A few months after the incident with my paper, they did.

My problem isn't that I don't have proof. My problem is that I have proof of corruption in math society, and mathematicians have to evaluate that proof.

And they have an enormous amount of social power.

Like consider what I call my prime counting function.

That's research in the area of prime numbers where I can actually show to a layperson the differences between my work and what mathematicians before me had, as well as even explain rather simply how it counts prime numbers!

That's with prime numbers.

People not mathematicians buy books about prime numbers.

They're buying into the mythos, as well as the knowledge.

Society says that mathematicians say what's true and important, the mathematicians make various declarations about prime numbers, much of it proven yes, but is it all?

And people buy on the basis of what they're told.

I can prove important mathematical research, and as long as other mathematicians refuse to acknowledge it, people sit back.

My latest research covers number theory that relates to factoring.

I've been arguing about it on Usenet for a while now, and some posters are settling into the position that if I have a key result in the factoring area, why haven't break-in's started on the Internet? Why aren't there successful mass hacker attacks against the Internet?

But again, I have proof of the results themselves, and the common sense position that sometimes it takes time.

And math society is going to give those people time.

It's the kind of behavior that's most puzzling, as some of you may think, well, ok, maybe mathematicians are corrupted in some way, but if really pushed, they'd do the right thing, notify society of something important, and just accept their fate.

Nope. They're waiting. The research I have is real. It does impact the factoring problem, and soon enough it may mean hordes of hackers and others persuing your personal data as easily as you cut on the television set to watch a show.

And mathematicians are clearly going to wait, hold out as long as they can, and wait until circumstances are forced on us all.

I still say that it's mostly society's fault, that you don't give people that kind of power, tell them to police themselves, and not expect some catastrophe down the road.

And it seems to me—from what I have proven—that we're coming up on the end of that road.