Harristotelian Logic

Eventually as they look for an integer counterexample, or lie claiming they have one, or try to use mathematical ideas I've proven wrong to say I'm wrong, and I challenge them to stick with integers, the posters on sci.math will quiet down, and eventually stop, except for a few of the diehards who will reply with mostly nonsense.

That's the pattern I've seen repeatedly, which is why this newsgroup is part of the discussion.

You can decide that there's no way I can be right, and go with the quiet.

Remember, I communicated with Barry Mazur, sent him an early draft of the paper that was published and then yanked in that bizarre tale where the math journal died.

He commented on it, encouraged me a bit, asked a question about the mathematics to which I replied and he didn't reply back.

An early version of the paper went to Andrew Granville to consider for publication in the New York Journal of Mathematics. He said it was up to his chief editor who said the paper was too short for their journal.

I explained the ideas in person at my alma mater to a Ralph McKenzie.

I have mathematical proof. I have a peer reviewed and published result.

But what mathematician wants to step up to the rest of his colleagues and say the theory of ideals has been proven wrong?

Do you? Would you? Could you?

Over a hundred years of mathematical effort, down the toilet.

Papers thought brilliant—trash.

Entire textbooks, worthless.

What about poor Andrew Wiles? Can you imagine being him?

Why not feel the humanity? Why not be what mathematics never can be—warm and caring about human reality?

But that's mathematics. If you didn't understand mathematics fully before then understand it now.

Your feelings do NOT matter. Your needs DO NOT MATTER..

What is mathematically correct is true despite your needs and feelings.

If you wish to switch to something else other than mathematics, then fine, be religious.

Practice mathematics as a religion and not as a working reality.

Most people do.

Few can tolerate the reality of the mathematical world, no matter what people say.

That's why people like me are so few in history. Most people can't survive the brutal reality of absolute truth.

At the end of the day, deep down you hope that mathematics cares about you personally and feels your human needs, when She just doesn't give a damn.

[A reply to someone who asked why, according to James, Barry Mazur did not reply.]

Actually as a sidepoint I think it was because of the Barry Mazur's email that Ralph McKenzie agreed to meet with me, though being an alumnus probably helped as well.

I forwarded the email to him after he claimed puzzlement with my original paper.

He still claimed puzzlement but said that we could work it out on the chalkboard, so I went to Nashville and explained it to him.

What's the point of Barry Mazur seeing an early draft of my paper and commenting on it?

Well, if he's brilliant, then there's no way he could have missed the implications. If he saw an error then he should have either said so, or at least—not replied.

His reply showed that he'd read over the result and had at least some grasp of it, and IF HE IS BRILLIANT then he loses plausible deniability.

His best defense is that he's not brilliant, and was too stupid to grasp the full implications of the result.

If I were him, I'd use that defense as the alternatives are kind of grim.

And make no mistake, I mention his name quite deliberately as from where I sit, soon enough, his career is over, in disgrace.