Harristotelian Logic

I wonder how many of you actually have sat down and had any kind of conversation with a mathematician at a university.

I have had a few such conversations, like maybe half a dozen or so over the years.

If you have not, then to you mathematicians may just be something out of a novel, or a movie, but I assure you they are just people.

And they are mostly safe from consequences in a very protected world.

This story would not have played out like it has if they were not so safe.

My research is so obviously important that the supporting evidence is overwhelming, but we all here know the rules, and the rules say that what the mathematicians at universities say is important about mathematics is what the world says is important.

So they know they can sit quietly, and they know the impact of sitting quietly.

I've TALKED to some of these people in person. They are protected in a way that most of you aren't.

Remember the story with Wiles? How he worked for over seven years with no one knowing exactly what he was doing? He spent a lot of that time at home with his family.

Can you do the same? Can you comprehend that world?

No one knows what you're really doing, but you have a good salary, respect and admiration, to go off and do what you want for over seven years.

To them this whole thing may be kind of a puzzle, and it might not feel real to them that by leaving me out here arguing with fringe people they are doing a bad thing.

In their world, you protect YOUR research. Academics work to further their OWN CAREERS.

Tellingly a leading math professor at my own alma mater Vanderbilt University told me when I sat down to explain my work on factoring polynomials into non-polynomial factors—worked it all out on the chalkboard in a discussion that covered all the major issues over a couple of hours—that I lacked "polish".

Well I have a B.Sc. in physics so I'm pondering why in the hell "polish" matters when the result is so dramatic, and you know, sitting here now I think that professor was just doing things by the rules of his society. My polish means so much in an academic world where polish is part of the rules, like the social rules that govern human behavior in many other areas.

But here and now with my research those rules are shown to be out-dated, but that society is safe. Those mathematicians do not have to acknowledge my research no matter how important it is easily shown to be because world society does not make them, and by the rules they know, there are no consequences.

Ever talk to a mathematician? Doing so might open your eyes to how their world works, so that you understand that this drama is not about arguments on Usenet, as Usenet has no real impact on their world.

It's about the society of mathematicians in universities around the world, and the rules they play by.