Friday, September 19, 2008
JSH: My academic credentials
Pondering the ongoing battle to get proper recognition for my research I am yet again making a post which is nothing about a particular mathematical proof but all about the social necessities that must be accepted.
I have a B.Sc. in physics from Vanderbilt University, where I went on a full scholarship.
For most of my life I have had the "gifted" label, and have belonged to a couple of high IQ societies, as I was in MENSA for a very brief time (very brief) and for longer was in an ultra high IQ group called the Ultranet where I was a provisional member because my IQ was only in the 1 in 1000 range by test, so I didn't have a high enough IQ for full membership. Some of the other members had the highest IQ's, by test, in the United States.
What else. Um, as a teenager I twice went to Duke University as part of their Talent Identification Program. (T.I.P.)
First time I learned geometry in a week. Second time I took structured C from an IBM researcher on loan to Duke for the program.
Having had most of my life to consider what "smart" means I'm mostly immune to insults telling me I'm stupid. For me, stupid is something I see every day. I know what it is. Stupid is, as stupid does, as Forrest Gump would say.
Part of the reason I turned to mathematical research was the notion that finally there was an area where all that mattered was the truth, and what you could prove.
For years though I was just a crackpot, for real, with various ideas I tried against Fermat's Last Theorem with little success, though often I deluded myself into thinking I had it, and I took the heat when I had to come back and admit failure after at times going on and on about corrupt people ignoring my research. That was back in the late 90's.
But one day in frustration, and pondering things like "degrees of freedom" I started working on a way to add more variables to the Fermat problem as I couldn't think of anything else to do with x, y and z, and eventually I figured out:
x+y+vz = x+y+vz
as a way to do it, with v my new variable and my new degree of freedom.
(Oh that STILL wasn't enough for that hard problem as I eventually turned to x^2 + y^2 + vz^2 = x^2 + y^2 + vz^2, after a few years of playing with the simpler one.)
And three years later I started having correct results but noticed that people kept arguing with me, but hey, I could just get published, right?
After rejection after rejection after rejection I finally DID get published and some sci.math'ers broke the journal process with barely a sweat using some emails, betraying the reality that the academic journal process is WEAK, and you can Google SWJPAM to get more of the story.
Short of it though is, editors published my paper, sci.math'ers emailed the editors, editors pulled my paper, journal died a few months later, quietly.
I don't believe in a lot as I've studied a lot—that "gifted" thing, means I absorb information extremely rapidly and I like to study history—and I know what's going on in terms of the big picture but can't quite figure out why demonstrably from what is happening to me no one really cares about mathematics.
My academic credentials probably mean more to most than any mathematical proof I ever find, which is the way of the world.
What people think is nothing compared to mathematical proof, but while I do math research as a hobby, I can't spend as much time at it as I'd like, so I'm making concessions to social reality and considering as a real problem to solve, how do I get proper recognition for my research so people will leave me alone to do more of it?
My original purpose in starting this thread was to try and counter the harsh political war that has been I believed so successful in blocking acceptance of my research. I wanted people to know that yes, I do have a degree in physics, and I tossed in other things that I hoped my help people to understand that I am not just some person mouthing off without a record demonstrating my abilities.
I know the problem here: we rely on our institutions in a very complex world.
But you should also rely on proof, and common sense.
Academic journals do not just die. Google SWJPAM, the journal that keeled over after sci.math'ers broke your vaunted journal process.
No other human being on the planet can suggest you look up a definition of a phrase like "mathematical proof" and you get that man's personal one.
Google it. Google: define mathematical proof. Or better, Google "definition of mathematical proof".
See if you don't see my math.
Some of you in academia may fear my rhetoric against the current status quo.
But whether it is from suggestions from someone like me, or collapsing funds available as the world gyrates through financial crisis, you will lose that money anyway.
The difference is, that as people like me are blocked and the answers are not correct, then you get events like those unfolding in the United States where the answers are ignored by people who think they can just, will their way through.
Our ancestors were better able to survive because of their intelligence, while today many think of it as a status object, to be waved around like a symbol, or to be put forward like a nice car, but it is about survival.
The meek will not inherit the earth, as if anyone does, it will be the intelligent as they did before as we are their children.
We as a species are the intelligent who inherited this earth.
And we as a species are the ones fighting to give it back to darkness.
I live in a country that prides itself on electing dumb people to office, and now the entire world is paying the price.
But if you were smart about it, how else could it have turned out?
Repudiate intelligence? Then why not just put chimpanzees in charge of the world?
The way things are going now, we'd probably be better off with a chimpanzee than George W. Bush.
I have mathematical proof. I even defined it.
The people arguing with me call me names. Gee, how smart do you have to be to do that?
They deride evidence. As if, anyone can get high in Google search results, right?
And they tell you they have the answers…
But where is THEIR proof?
Read this thread and see the people against me and understand what I face: politics in the face of evidence, denial in the face of proof, anger and hatred against the facts.
Recidivism back to where we came from, as if basic ape behavior matters more than the facts.
But FACTS rule the world.
I have a B.Sc. in physics from Vanderbilt University, where I went on a full scholarship.
For most of my life I have had the "gifted" label, and have belonged to a couple of high IQ societies, as I was in MENSA for a very brief time (very brief) and for longer was in an ultra high IQ group called the Ultranet where I was a provisional member because my IQ was only in the 1 in 1000 range by test, so I didn't have a high enough IQ for full membership. Some of the other members had the highest IQ's, by test, in the United States.
What else. Um, as a teenager I twice went to Duke University as part of their Talent Identification Program. (T.I.P.)
First time I learned geometry in a week. Second time I took structured C from an IBM researcher on loan to Duke for the program.
Having had most of my life to consider what "smart" means I'm mostly immune to insults telling me I'm stupid. For me, stupid is something I see every day. I know what it is. Stupid is, as stupid does, as Forrest Gump would say.
Part of the reason I turned to mathematical research was the notion that finally there was an area where all that mattered was the truth, and what you could prove.
For years though I was just a crackpot, for real, with various ideas I tried against Fermat's Last Theorem with little success, though often I deluded myself into thinking I had it, and I took the heat when I had to come back and admit failure after at times going on and on about corrupt people ignoring my research. That was back in the late 90's.
But one day in frustration, and pondering things like "degrees of freedom" I started working on a way to add more variables to the Fermat problem as I couldn't think of anything else to do with x, y and z, and eventually I figured out:
x+y+vz = x+y+vz
as a way to do it, with v my new variable and my new degree of freedom.
(Oh that STILL wasn't enough for that hard problem as I eventually turned to x^2 + y^2 + vz^2 = x^2 + y^2 + vz^2, after a few years of playing with the simpler one.)
And three years later I started having correct results but noticed that people kept arguing with me, but hey, I could just get published, right?
After rejection after rejection after rejection I finally DID get published and some sci.math'ers broke the journal process with barely a sweat using some emails, betraying the reality that the academic journal process is WEAK, and you can Google SWJPAM to get more of the story.
Short of it though is, editors published my paper, sci.math'ers emailed the editors, editors pulled my paper, journal died a few months later, quietly.
I don't believe in a lot as I've studied a lot—that "gifted" thing, means I absorb information extremely rapidly and I like to study history—and I know what's going on in terms of the big picture but can't quite figure out why demonstrably from what is happening to me no one really cares about mathematics.
My academic credentials probably mean more to most than any mathematical proof I ever find, which is the way of the world.
What people think is nothing compared to mathematical proof, but while I do math research as a hobby, I can't spend as much time at it as I'd like, so I'm making concessions to social reality and considering as a real problem to solve, how do I get proper recognition for my research so people will leave me alone to do more of it?
My original purpose in starting this thread was to try and counter the harsh political war that has been I believed so successful in blocking acceptance of my research. I wanted people to know that yes, I do have a degree in physics, and I tossed in other things that I hoped my help people to understand that I am not just some person mouthing off without a record demonstrating my abilities.
I know the problem here: we rely on our institutions in a very complex world.
But you should also rely on proof, and common sense.
Academic journals do not just die. Google SWJPAM, the journal that keeled over after sci.math'ers broke your vaunted journal process.
No other human being on the planet can suggest you look up a definition of a phrase like "mathematical proof" and you get that man's personal one.
Google it. Google: define mathematical proof. Or better, Google "definition of mathematical proof".
See if you don't see my math.
Some of you in academia may fear my rhetoric against the current status quo.
But whether it is from suggestions from someone like me, or collapsing funds available as the world gyrates through financial crisis, you will lose that money anyway.
The difference is, that as people like me are blocked and the answers are not correct, then you get events like those unfolding in the United States where the answers are ignored by people who think they can just, will their way through.
Our ancestors were better able to survive because of their intelligence, while today many think of it as a status object, to be waved around like a symbol, or to be put forward like a nice car, but it is about survival.
The meek will not inherit the earth, as if anyone does, it will be the intelligent as they did before as we are their children.
We as a species are the intelligent who inherited this earth.
And we as a species are the ones fighting to give it back to darkness.
I live in a country that prides itself on electing dumb people to office, and now the entire world is paying the price.
But if you were smart about it, how else could it have turned out?
Repudiate intelligence? Then why not just put chimpanzees in charge of the world?
The way things are going now, we'd probably be better off with a chimpanzee than George W. Bush.
I have mathematical proof. I even defined it.
The people arguing with me call me names. Gee, how smart do you have to be to do that?
They deride evidence. As if, anyone can get high in Google search results, right?
And they tell you they have the answers…
But where is THEIR proof?
Read this thread and see the people against me and understand what I face: politics in the face of evidence, denial in the face of proof, anger and hatred against the facts.
Recidivism back to where we came from, as if basic ape behavior matters more than the facts.
But FACTS rule the world.
# posted by James Harris @ 21:06 
