Sunday, January 14, 2007
JSH: So why the fraud from the world's mathematicians
Mathematics is one of our greatest disciplines without which we would not have our modern world, for instance, you wouldn't be reading these words because computers wouldn't exist.
We have a world of beautiful results and brilliant insights that have given us powerful tools with which civilization can do more and more.
Mathematics is the backbone of the sciences, crucial in technology, and mathematicians around the world get a lot of credibility immediately with most people—even if what they actually do in mathematics has nothing whatsoever to do with any of that.
How many of you think you understand the mathematical field?
Would it surprise you that "pure" mathematicians can have an entire career with results that have nothing to do with science, nothing to do with technology, and nothing to do with anything at all that is practical, where every result they have has simply been looked over by other people and never tested any other way?
If that would surprise you then you don't understand the modern mathematical world.
MOST of the mathematics used in science and technology was figured out centuries ago, for instance, think of geometry. Euclid did quite a bit over a thousand years ago. High school, or secondary school for people outside the US, geometry would not have surprises for Euclid, who properly gets credited with collecting what was known in his time for a work relied upon for generations.
So we build on what was known before that worked, which is a great thing, but it can be problematic if a mistake is made!
Mistakes made in practical areas lead to things that DO NOT WORK but in "pure math" areas, how do you know?
Such results are only looked over by people. Yup, people look them over looking for mistakes in the reasoning, and there is a strongly held assumption that if a lot of people look at something for long enough, then they would catch any and all mistakes.
But that is just dumb. It defies what we know in the modern world about how groups operate, as sometimes the MORE people who look something over, believing it must be right, the less likely an error is to be found.
With mathematical ideas that can be used to build a better engine for an automobile, wrong assertions can reveal themselves by the engine not working better, but if you just had engineers looking over an idea who never built the engine, what might they think could work even when it doesn't?
Well in number theory with some impractical research, there was a mistake made in the late 1800's.
While pursuing a short proof of Fermat's Last Theorem I uncovered the mistake.
To date, modern mathematicians in number theory have not fully acknowledged the mistake and corrected it, but instead, keep teaching it.
To date, nothing has worked in stopping these people, as I've gotten publication—some sci.math posters managed to break the much vaunted formal peer review system with some emails to the editor claiming I was wrong, and the editor pulled my paper, and later the journal died.
I've put my research on web pages, where it is at right now.
I have emailed mathematicians around the world, and even gone back to my alma mater Vanderbilt University and explained my mathematical ideas to a professor there.
Remember, these are university mathematics professors who can hear of my results, understand that they are correct, and then go on teaching wrong stuff because the alternative is to feel very invalidated, and as the years go by they can just see that nothing I do works anyway, so it's not like there is much pressure on them to change.
But they are "beautiful minds" right?
No. They aren't. If they were, they would have figured out what I did.
They are people who now realize they are NOT as brilliant as they thought, and that will not change, no matter what they do.
Don't you get it?
Like Andrew Wiles. He is currently credited as one of the great mathematical minds of all time, but my research takes all that away, but it keeps going, as the full story is he may be no better at math than most of you are.
He may be worse, as his instincts didn't tell him that the methods he was learning in school didn't actually work.
Why would he tell the truth?
If he were great, he wouldn't be in the position he is in.
We have a world of beautiful results and brilliant insights that have given us powerful tools with which civilization can do more and more.
Mathematics is the backbone of the sciences, crucial in technology, and mathematicians around the world get a lot of credibility immediately with most people—even if what they actually do in mathematics has nothing whatsoever to do with any of that.
How many of you think you understand the mathematical field?
Would it surprise you that "pure" mathematicians can have an entire career with results that have nothing to do with science, nothing to do with technology, and nothing to do with anything at all that is practical, where every result they have has simply been looked over by other people and never tested any other way?
If that would surprise you then you don't understand the modern mathematical world.
MOST of the mathematics used in science and technology was figured out centuries ago, for instance, think of geometry. Euclid did quite a bit over a thousand years ago. High school, or secondary school for people outside the US, geometry would not have surprises for Euclid, who properly gets credited with collecting what was known in his time for a work relied upon for generations.
So we build on what was known before that worked, which is a great thing, but it can be problematic if a mistake is made!
Mistakes made in practical areas lead to things that DO NOT WORK but in "pure math" areas, how do you know?
Such results are only looked over by people. Yup, people look them over looking for mistakes in the reasoning, and there is a strongly held assumption that if a lot of people look at something for long enough, then they would catch any and all mistakes.
But that is just dumb. It defies what we know in the modern world about how groups operate, as sometimes the MORE people who look something over, believing it must be right, the less likely an error is to be found.
With mathematical ideas that can be used to build a better engine for an automobile, wrong assertions can reveal themselves by the engine not working better, but if you just had engineers looking over an idea who never built the engine, what might they think could work even when it doesn't?
Well in number theory with some impractical research, there was a mistake made in the late 1800's.
While pursuing a short proof of Fermat's Last Theorem I uncovered the mistake.
To date, modern mathematicians in number theory have not fully acknowledged the mistake and corrected it, but instead, keep teaching it.
To date, nothing has worked in stopping these people, as I've gotten publication—some sci.math posters managed to break the much vaunted formal peer review system with some emails to the editor claiming I was wrong, and the editor pulled my paper, and later the journal died.
I've put my research on web pages, where it is at right now.
I have emailed mathematicians around the world, and even gone back to my alma mater Vanderbilt University and explained my mathematical ideas to a professor there.
Remember, these are university mathematics professors who can hear of my results, understand that they are correct, and then go on teaching wrong stuff because the alternative is to feel very invalidated, and as the years go by they can just see that nothing I do works anyway, so it's not like there is much pressure on them to change.
But they are "beautiful minds" right?
No. They aren't. If they were, they would have figured out what I did.
They are people who now realize they are NOT as brilliant as they thought, and that will not change, no matter what they do.
Don't you get it?
Like Andrew Wiles. He is currently credited as one of the great mathematical minds of all time, but my research takes all that away, but it keeps going, as the full story is he may be no better at math than most of you are.
He may be worse, as his instincts didn't tell him that the methods he was learning in school didn't actually work.
Why would he tell the truth?
If he were great, he wouldn't be in the position he is in.
# posted by James Harris @ 15:06 
