Sunday, January 14, 2007
JSH: So why is it fraud?
I uncovered a major error in number theory that entered the field over a hundred years ago that hasn't been noticed because no one did the type of analysis I did—it's kind of creative—and because it is in a "pure math" area, so with no practical application there was no indication from the real world that the stuff they were doing didn't work.
I stumbled across the problem after working—unsuccessfully for much of the time—for over four years trying to find a simple proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.
The paper I wrote that got published was actually about demonstrating the error.
That's how sci.math'ers attacked it, by using the error to claim the paper was wrong—not admitting there was this error.
It's a big enough error that the journal dying is not a big surprise.
But I talked out that paper and its techniques on more than Usenet, as I emailed mathematicians as well, including Barry Mazur a top ranked mathematician at Harvard University. I also worked out the argument in person at Vanderbilt University talking to a Professor McKenzie, using the chalkboard in his office, at his request. He suggested I explain in person, after I forwarded an email I go in reply from Barry Mazur.
What should have happened is that without me even having to get published at least one of the people I contacted should have raised the alarm about the problem I found.
After all, it entered the mathematical field before any of them were born.
That's not the fault of any of them.
But teaching it now is a fault, and that is entirely on them.
It is academic fraud.
Why would an entire mathematical journal die over this?
Because it is that big. As the years go by the fraud aspect of it gets bigger as do the costs associated with the fraud.
Consider some undergraduate in mathematics, who thinks they are learning great things, who finds out that part of what they have learned is just wrong, and it was known that it was wrong, years ago.
Do you want to be the one to try and rescue that person back to believing in the system?
Today that undergraduate can learn the teachings are wrong by coming across my research on the web, and what is their choice?
To leave.
How can they confront math professors?
Or they can decide this world is just crap anyway, they're just there to do whatever it takes to get something, and just repeat what they're told without believing in any of it, just playing a dumb game.
The facts in this case leave no doubt about what is the real truth:
Mathematical journals do not just publish anyone. And they do not just die.
People do not spend a lot of energy where they do not have serious investment, so Usenet posters claiming they do so because there is nothing to what I say, are saying you must be either dumb about human nature, or with them.
And mathematics professors who do not reveal to the world a serious flaw in their field are not decent or ethical people.
I stumbled across the problem after working—unsuccessfully for much of the time—for over four years trying to find a simple proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.
The paper I wrote that got published was actually about demonstrating the error.
That's how sci.math'ers attacked it, by using the error to claim the paper was wrong—not admitting there was this error.
It's a big enough error that the journal dying is not a big surprise.
But I talked out that paper and its techniques on more than Usenet, as I emailed mathematicians as well, including Barry Mazur a top ranked mathematician at Harvard University. I also worked out the argument in person at Vanderbilt University talking to a Professor McKenzie, using the chalkboard in his office, at his request. He suggested I explain in person, after I forwarded an email I go in reply from Barry Mazur.
What should have happened is that without me even having to get published at least one of the people I contacted should have raised the alarm about the problem I found.
After all, it entered the mathematical field before any of them were born.
That's not the fault of any of them.
But teaching it now is a fault, and that is entirely on them.
It is academic fraud.
Why would an entire mathematical journal die over this?
Because it is that big. As the years go by the fraud aspect of it gets bigger as do the costs associated with the fraud.
Consider some undergraduate in mathematics, who thinks they are learning great things, who finds out that part of what they have learned is just wrong, and it was known that it was wrong, years ago.
Do you want to be the one to try and rescue that person back to believing in the system?
Today that undergraduate can learn the teachings are wrong by coming across my research on the web, and what is their choice?
To leave.
How can they confront math professors?
Or they can decide this world is just crap anyway, they're just there to do whatever it takes to get something, and just repeat what they're told without believing in any of it, just playing a dumb game.
The facts in this case leave no doubt about what is the real truth:
Mathematical journals do not just publish anyone. And they do not just die.
People do not spend a lot of energy where they do not have serious investment, so Usenet posters claiming they do so because there is nothing to what I say, are saying you must be either dumb about human nature, or with them.
And mathematics professors who do not reveal to the world a serious flaw in their field are not decent or ethical people.
# posted by James Harris @ 15:26 
