Tuesday, October 27, 2009
JSH: RH is probably just junk
Sadly a lot of mysticism and hero worship has been arrayed around Riemann's famous hypothesis, but hey, it WAS just a hypothesis, so it's not his fault. But in light of the multi-dimensional form of the prime counting function the hypothesis is probably just junk, and I fear some mathematicians realized that fairly quickly after I discovered the multi-dimensional form back in 2002.
So how could anyone NOT tell the world? How could they just sit quietly and let the research get maligned?
I'm not sure, and I've pondered those questions and more for 7 years now, and my guess is that on some deep level, they were looking out for themselves, became cowards to the truth, and found it easier as time went by to convince themselves that they were ok.
Odlyzko himself told me the difference equation form of the prime counting function was "not of interest".
His entire CAREER will probably be defined by this event only. To history, he probably will have no other relevance except as one of the dark mathematicians who didn't do the right thing.
It's easier to read history books and imagine you wouldn't be one of those people than to live through something like this saga, and actually DO the right thing. For years I've watched math people from professors, to yes, students like yourselves, do the wrong thing, when it was all just a matter of time.
There is always lots of time to have your "contributions" wiped away by an assessment by the world that you are scum.
Even if math people could drag this out for decades or even past your lifetimes, anything you supposedly accomplished could be dismissed by the world when the truth came out, and that would define you as far as the future is concerned. Nothing else.
Who knows what some of these mathematicians have been doing over the years. Maybe even trying to make their own BIG discoveries to try and counterbalance the weight of their bad decision?
But make no mistake, as far as history is concerned, their mistakes here will be it for them. Their lives in a nutshell as nothing more than those "bad people" who fought the answer to the prime distribution and continuous functions.
So how could anyone NOT tell the world? How could they just sit quietly and let the research get maligned?
I'm not sure, and I've pondered those questions and more for 7 years now, and my guess is that on some deep level, they were looking out for themselves, became cowards to the truth, and found it easier as time went by to convince themselves that they were ok.
Odlyzko himself told me the difference equation form of the prime counting function was "not of interest".
His entire CAREER will probably be defined by this event only. To history, he probably will have no other relevance except as one of the dark mathematicians who didn't do the right thing.
It's easier to read history books and imagine you wouldn't be one of those people than to live through something like this saga, and actually DO the right thing. For years I've watched math people from professors, to yes, students like yourselves, do the wrong thing, when it was all just a matter of time.
There is always lots of time to have your "contributions" wiped away by an assessment by the world that you are scum.
Even if math people could drag this out for decades or even past your lifetimes, anything you supposedly accomplished could be dismissed by the world when the truth came out, and that would define you as far as the future is concerned. Nothing else.
Who knows what some of these mathematicians have been doing over the years. Maybe even trying to make their own BIG discoveries to try and counterbalance the weight of their bad decision?
But make no mistake, as far as history is concerned, their mistakes here will be it for them. Their lives in a nutshell as nothing more than those "bad people" who fought the answer to the prime distribution and continuous functions.
# posted by James Harris @ 21:36 
