Saturday, December 27, 2008
JSH: Mathematicians cheating is kind of weird
Ok, so I have a simple proof of a massive problem in number theory and even got a more complicated cubic version published in a formally peer reviewed mathematical journal which is now dead. It died about a month after it pulled my paper after publication after some math people sent a bunch of emails claiming it was wrong.
To see the archives of the now dead, dead, dead math journal, Google: SWJPAM
No other journal would touch that paper and a physicist I had shopping it around told me he got the answer back that they just weren't going to touch it, not that it was wrong.
I personally sent the paper finally to the Annals of Mathematics at Princeton, and was never told it was wrong, or anything else for months. After six months I contacted them asking what was its status and was told the database had been noted that a rejection had been sent by email. I never received a rejection. I asked if I could be told why, and was told that was all the info in the database, so no reviewers report.
I have recently greatly simplified my presentation of the problem, and written another paper. It can be found at a math group I recently created:
http://mymathgroup.googlegroups.com/web/Analytic_Method_Highlighting_Number_Theoretic_.pdf
(Hope that works if it doesn't, well, um, hope it works.)
That paper is now at the Bulletin of the AMS.
If they reject it will go to the Annals.
If they reject I will work my way down and work journals around the world as this time I am very serious.
If necessary later I will pursue prosecutions for academic fraud and have no problems with pushing government agencies to issue subpoenas for people at Princeton or wherever.
I have no respect for any institution in the world. I have no problem with having any academic at any level brought before a jury.
So you grad students know you have no protection here. I may need any number of you to testify about what your professors were saying.
But what's more interesting to me is this weird behavior from academics who should be terrified about not only losing their careers by ignoring this result, but dealing with massive humiliation along the way, so it occurs to me that they do not believe that proof will matter!
Like I can talk about Barry Mazur at Harvard as a little twerp who got a look at my earlier paper, but so far to my knowledge has done nothing.
Of course there is no way if the result gets accepted I would just sit still about him remaining at his position, so he never believed that it would be accepted. And he will not be at Harvard much longer. I guarantee it.
I can go on and on.
There is Andrew Granville who infamously told me his grad students often found something like my prime counting function, who also looked over the paper.
Kenneth Ribet is safe as he never commented on my work and actually helped me a while back with a stupid bet I made (and lost).
I can rip through a Who's Who of academics at institutions around the world.
So, then, they never expected anyone to accept mathematical proof.
Now isn't that odd?
What do they think they know that I don't.
Some of you have been remarkably arrogant as well, especially considering the massive hits you are going to take in the public eye as it will be very public and none of you will be anonymous any longer.
Your faces will be of interest as will be your living circumstances, especially certain ones of you like "Uncle Al" and "mensanator" who seems to have the delusion that he can hide when the world is actually looking for him.
This issue is of great importance to me as I've been very curious about why people would act against their own self-interests on such a scale when the end was not really in doubt.
It has always been just a matter of time.
So there finally is the last mystery.
Over the last six years I have worked through possibilities and closed doors to other answers so that the final mystery is: why would academics with everything to lose behave as if mathematical proof wouldn't matter?
Simplest answer is, they don't believe in it.
That would indicate a notion that academics actually only work to convince people of what is true, not to find what is actually true, so if the belief is that the weight of thousands of established mathematicians around the world was all that mattered then it would make sense that one man couldn't emerge victorious in that situation—if you thought it was just about one man's word against thousands of others.
To me that is remarkable and well worth the time to make certain that that judgment is the correct one.
As make no mistake, at the end of this situation, probably early in 2009, quite a few established people will I'm increasingly certain no longer be in their current positions with not only a loss of status but also of tenure, pensions, etc., and may face governments requesting their money back.
Who would risk that over some math if they thought it was possible?
Ergo, they don't believe in their own system. Don't believe in formal peer review or any other kind of review. Don't believe in grad students or even undergrads as people who cared primarily about the truth.
It follows that these people cynically do not believe in the world's academic system at all.
I consider them through their actions to be the most damning witnesses against the modern academic structure—worldwide.
After all, these are MATHEMATICIANS. If they could hold their own for over six years with the current setup and act as if they'd never get caught, then why should people trust, say, English Literature professors?
I consider the case closed. The only thing left in getting the mystery solidly ended is the testimony of these people and of the people around them especially their grad students:
What have they been doing these last six years as they dove into a world of fraud and academic pretend?
To see the archives of the now dead, dead, dead math journal, Google: SWJPAM
No other journal would touch that paper and a physicist I had shopping it around told me he got the answer back that they just weren't going to touch it, not that it was wrong.
I personally sent the paper finally to the Annals of Mathematics at Princeton, and was never told it was wrong, or anything else for months. After six months I contacted them asking what was its status and was told the database had been noted that a rejection had been sent by email. I never received a rejection. I asked if I could be told why, and was told that was all the info in the database, so no reviewers report.
I have recently greatly simplified my presentation of the problem, and written another paper. It can be found at a math group I recently created:
http://mymathgroup.googlegroups.com/web/Analytic_Method_Highlighting_Number_Theoretic_.pdf
(Hope that works if it doesn't, well, um, hope it works.)
That paper is now at the Bulletin of the AMS.
If they reject it will go to the Annals.
If they reject I will work my way down and work journals around the world as this time I am very serious.
If necessary later I will pursue prosecutions for academic fraud and have no problems with pushing government agencies to issue subpoenas for people at Princeton or wherever.
I have no respect for any institution in the world. I have no problem with having any academic at any level brought before a jury.
So you grad students know you have no protection here. I may need any number of you to testify about what your professors were saying.
But what's more interesting to me is this weird behavior from academics who should be terrified about not only losing their careers by ignoring this result, but dealing with massive humiliation along the way, so it occurs to me that they do not believe that proof will matter!
Like I can talk about Barry Mazur at Harvard as a little twerp who got a look at my earlier paper, but so far to my knowledge has done nothing.
Of course there is no way if the result gets accepted I would just sit still about him remaining at his position, so he never believed that it would be accepted. And he will not be at Harvard much longer. I guarantee it.
I can go on and on.
There is Andrew Granville who infamously told me his grad students often found something like my prime counting function, who also looked over the paper.
Kenneth Ribet is safe as he never commented on my work and actually helped me a while back with a stupid bet I made (and lost).
I can rip through a Who's Who of academics at institutions around the world.
So, then, they never expected anyone to accept mathematical proof.
Now isn't that odd?
What do they think they know that I don't.
Some of you have been remarkably arrogant as well, especially considering the massive hits you are going to take in the public eye as it will be very public and none of you will be anonymous any longer.
Your faces will be of interest as will be your living circumstances, especially certain ones of you like "Uncle Al" and "mensanator" who seems to have the delusion that he can hide when the world is actually looking for him.
This issue is of great importance to me as I've been very curious about why people would act against their own self-interests on such a scale when the end was not really in doubt.
It has always been just a matter of time.
So there finally is the last mystery.
Over the last six years I have worked through possibilities and closed doors to other answers so that the final mystery is: why would academics with everything to lose behave as if mathematical proof wouldn't matter?
Simplest answer is, they don't believe in it.
That would indicate a notion that academics actually only work to convince people of what is true, not to find what is actually true, so if the belief is that the weight of thousands of established mathematicians around the world was all that mattered then it would make sense that one man couldn't emerge victorious in that situation—if you thought it was just about one man's word against thousands of others.
To me that is remarkable and well worth the time to make certain that that judgment is the correct one.
As make no mistake, at the end of this situation, probably early in 2009, quite a few established people will I'm increasingly certain no longer be in their current positions with not only a loss of status but also of tenure, pensions, etc., and may face governments requesting their money back.
Who would risk that over some math if they thought it was possible?
Ergo, they don't believe in their own system. Don't believe in formal peer review or any other kind of review. Don't believe in grad students or even undergrads as people who cared primarily about the truth.
It follows that these people cynically do not believe in the world's academic system at all.
I consider them through their actions to be the most damning witnesses against the modern academic structure—worldwide.
After all, these are MATHEMATICIANS. If they could hold their own for over six years with the current setup and act as if they'd never get caught, then why should people trust, say, English Literature professors?
I consider the case closed. The only thing left in getting the mystery solidly ended is the testimony of these people and of the people around them especially their grad students:
What have they been doing these last six years as they dove into a world of fraud and academic pretend?
# posted by James Harris @ 01:32 
