Harristotelian Logic

So yeah I had a paper published in 2003, and while that paper used cubics instead of quadratics, and I hadn't figured out all the detail I have today, it still got the job done of showing an issue with the ring of algebraic integers and was appropriately published.

And some sci.math'ers went after it with emails to the editors, who caved, yanked my paper, managed one more edition and then shut down, the hosting university SCRUBBED all mention of the journal—which had about 10 years of existence—and math people went on about their lives. World kept on turning….

(Google: SWJPAM to get the EMIS archives of the dead, dead, dead math journal.)

And you know with a problem of this sort, which is a foundation level problem, and a dead math journal back in 2003, yeah, it begs the limits of incredulity to imagine there are not top mathematicians who know exactly what the problem is and even know how it destroys their own research, or worse, know it invalidates research they are currently doing!!! (Can you imagine? I can. Knowingly doing crap research that is mathematically false. KNOWINGLY.)

But that's speculation.

And I think a MAJOR ISSUE for readers who say, but that's impossible, is that they don't realize maybe that if they are expected to not believe it, then if it is what is happening, then certain people know them well enough to know that's what they'd do.

So it becomes a Catch-22. I can prove there is an issue. I can show all kinds of craziness around the issue, like a dead, dead, dead math journal. But if math society say, oh, that's not possible, you get 7 years plus of people living in error.

So why is it a big deal?

x^2 + bx + 2 = (x + 2u_1)(x + u_2)

is a great expression I think to understand the error and figure things out. Use a non-zero integer b, and ponder how u_1 got left out when mathematicians were working to extend Gauss. Gauss did fine with gaussian integers which don't have a coverage issue.

Coverage was KNOWN as an issue back when algebraic integers were defined, but the tests those mathematicians did weren't it would seem up to the task of finding this problem, and it wipes out about a hundred plus years of number theory.

Just freaking wipes it out. It is an unbelievably devastating error. Unbelievably devastating.

It re-writes history books. Turns math heroes into zeros. And utterly destroys the image of the mathematical community which it holds to most of the world today.

So yeah, some of these professors may believe in some rationalization that they're doing a "good thing for the world", possibly deciding that living in error—ending mathematics as a real discipline in a lot of number theory areas—is better than dealing with the consequences and the damage to prestige and academia.

AFTER all, they would know that the world got along kind of ok for over a hundred years with the error!!!

Oh, so how? Well, "pure mathematics" arose with the error!!! It may have been some kind of organic thing as the math doesn't work! So if that hadn't happened some people might be noting that this stuff doesn't work for anything practical so maybe it's wrong.

But that's speculation. But the math does not work. That is NOT speculation. It just does not work.

So it really begs incredulity that top mathematicians don't know about the error. But hey, have to note that's speculation.

But think about it, all any math student has to do is just throw:

x^2 + bx + 2 = (x + 2u_1)(x + u_2)

up on the board, talk about coverage, with b a non-zero integer, at any university around the world on any given day, and they can just about blow up the classroom in discussion, so does that happen?

Oddly enough, in authoritarian environments, it's probably damn unlikely. So yeah, they can still I'd guess claim ignorance.