Friday, December 08, 2006

 

JSH: Two proofs equals a lot of denial

So I had to find two proofs of the same problem, where the second proof had to be obvious in such a way that there was no room for anyone to find even the hint of an objection.

That's a lot to ask someone, but then again, the proofs show that much of what many of you may have cherished as brilliant mathematics is just wrong.

The theory of ideals goes and Galois Theory as many of you have been taught it, isn't quite right.

That's a lot to absorb.

But the wrong answer is to decide that you can't handle that truth, and figure if I were right then mathematicians in charge would tell the truth—even if it meant they were not as brilliant as they thought, and even if for some of them it might mean losing positions of high prestige.

I think this situation leaves the door open for a lot of finger pointing at who is supposed to do the right thing.

So, should Andrew Wiles, if he were to find out about all of this, come forward and step up to the world and say, hey, there was this incredible mistake made in the math field over a hundred years ago, long before anyone alive today was born, and um, it just so happens because of this mistake that only was just noticed by some, um, amateur math guy that people were calling a crackpot, I didn't prove Taniyma-Shimura and much of the accomplishments I think I have in mathematics are crap?

You people are very cruel if you expect the people currently at the top in the field by a strong opinion of the majority to come forward and do something like that.

It's just not a human thing for you to do to them.

In many ways, it's NOT THEIR FAULT.

The mistake entered the field after Gauss, and it kind of snow-balled over the years.

The mistake is not your fault—hiding it would be.

Hiding it would be a very big mistake.

Especially trying to hide it knowing that I'm the person you would have to out-think, and beat down the line, indefinitely, knowing that the day I pushed it through against a math community in denial would be the day the world would see you not as people caught up in a remarkable situation difficult for anyone—but as cons and frauds.

I am asking you to protect people like Wiles, Ribet, Taylor and all those others who had so many reasons to believe they were brilliant and right, who will have to live with learning they were wrong, and I am asking you not to say it is their responsibility to tell the truth here.

Some one of you needs to step up here.

Don't leave this on "leading mathematicians" who are getting the full kick in the gut as if you can just blame them later if this thing drags out while students keep getting taught wrong stuff!!!

Those students deserve better. The world deserves better.

This story can still be rather remarkable and kind of neat with some people, yes, having to live through some extreme disappointment.

But you people do not want to live with the disappointment you would feel later for denying easy mathematical proofs that show one of the most dramatic events in the history of mathematics, opening the door to a surge in mathematical knowledge about the fundamental properties of numbers, and who knows what else we could figure out?

Mathematics is the "queen of the sciences" for good reason.

There may have been a block to mathematical knowledge we can no more comprehend than cavemen could comprehend integral calculus that was just removed.

Over a hundred years with a subtle mistake that JUST recently got found out, opening the door to huge increases and leaps in knowledge that could be beyond our imaginations.

Your choice.

Keep fighting the math or go with it.

But you know the answer here, if you fight the math, go against mathematical proof, no matter what happens, you lose.

[A reply to someone who said that he didn't understand why James keeps trying to educate the nay sayers.]

Well, idealism has its price.

There are of course other factors.

If any of you really knew my place in history, and really understood just how big these results are, would you dare talk to me?

No. You wouldn't. But now, thinking that I am wrong and incapable of getting my research accepted unless I convince some nobodies on Usenet, you do.

I know what the future holds. You clearly do not.





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