Harristotelian Logic

Just for the sake of argument, suppose that someone found a massive error in some major discipline that went back over a hundred years and was big enough that it invalidated the degrees of most of the people in this area, as their coursework heavily relied on the flawed area.

Is there any reason to believe that anyone in that discipline would acknowledge such a find?

Even if there were some support given for the person who found the error, what if people who figured they'd lose everything they'd worked their entire lives for, simply chose to try to hide the error?

Would there be any way that it could be found out regardless?

How about a journal publishing a key paper, retracting it under pressure and dying soon after? Might that have an impact?

It didn't.

That scenario is a current reality as I'm the poor slob who found an over one hundred year old error in some abstract algebraic number theory.

Mathematicians in number theory have taken the run away road, and I have lots of stories that are dramatic, and true, where they've gone out of their way to avoid the result, even in one case, after proving it themselves.

But it's a Catch-22. The world trusts these people and counts them as experts in the area. My result takes away their expertise, so they deny it.

Hey, I even got a paper published. Some sci.math people emailed the editors of the math journal claiming the paper was wrong. The editors yanked it immediately, then put up that it was withdrawn—they withdrew it, not me. They managed one more edition of their journal, and then quietly shut down.

See: http://www.emis.de/journals/SWJPAM/

and

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

Of course the sci.math'ers rant about how horrible the journal was, and rationalize the destruction of a math journal as if it were an every day, minor occurrence.

All within the bounds of the scenario I painted.

So who can you believe?

I have multiple math results, some of them comprehensible to regular people, as one of them counts prime numbers. But beyond that, hey, I've been a computer programmer. Some of my software coding may have helped save your lives, but keeping with the traditions of my field I will not talk specifically about what company I mean. And also, the math people can get vicious so I am wary about how much personal information I give.

Nonetheless, some of my work may have helped save your life or that of a loved one of yours.

So you can't check that but you can do a web search on "Class Viewer" and see a little tool I wrote for Java programmers. Yup, Java is currently the most popular programming language on the planet. I have one of the top apps in its domain, which is a tool for people who help build your technological world.

And if none of that grabs you, read over some of my research in logic:

http://mymath.blogspot.com/2005/06/three-valued-logic.html

I explain why logical systems need three values: true, false, and unresolvable.

Oh, hey, or you can read the first prime counting function article on the Wikipedia that I wrote, where my final version is still available in the history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Prime_counting_function&oldid=9142249

Mathematicians will not acknowledge the truth because it invalidates them.

This scenario has never occurred where an over one hundred year old error has been found in a mature modern discipline, with enough impact to invalidate every top researcher in the field, as well as the middle ones and the bottom ones.

That means that any supporter I get will have to fight the top mathematicians in this area, who are fighting for their prestige, their positions, and their very sense of self.

It's harder to imagine a greater challenge in our highly political world.

But I am hoping that the some of you do the math, or check the facts, and slowly the idea goes out that some very powerful people are hiding a very embarrassing truth, and eventually enough momentum is gained that they are forced to defend themselves, and when it is obvious they cannot go against the mathematical proofs I have, people will quit giving them the benefit of the doubt.