Re: Marie Jean Faucounau sues me for at least 8,487 Swiss Francs

frgn_at_bluemail.ch
Date: 12/10/04 

Date: 10 Dec 2004 00:01:31 -0800

My adventures in the math-history list, Jul/Aug 1997, part 8

David Fowler of Cambridge, Massachusetts, wrote that arguing
with me is like throwing pearls before swine ... No member of
the math-history list could convince me of the Greek origin of
geometry and mathematics, and what they threw before me were
rather prejudices than pearls. All those prejudices about
pre-Greek mathematics.

Funny what Aristotle wrote in metaphysics, book 1, chapter 1:
"peri Aigypton hai mathaematikai proton technai synestaesan"
= the first mathematical techniques have been developed (put
together) in Egypt. Aristotle was a fool. Didn't he know that
his own people, the Greeks, founded geometry and mathematics?
Really, how could Aristotle spread such nonsense? Unbelievable.
Inoui (un mot français pour les amis de fr.soc.histoire.antique).
On the other hand, he was a Greek, even that fool Aristotle was
a Greek, and a Greek a priori can't be a fool, so we are here
confronted with a fairly intricate paradox ...

And then Herodotus. He wrote that geometry was founded in the
Nile Valley and was brought from there to Greece. Another fool,
that Herodotus. Another Greek fool. Another paradox.

Those Greeks really didn't know what they were speaking about.
At least some of their greatest minds, Aristotle and Herodotus.
How silly of me to rely on their word ...

A Cretan was most upset by me, assuming I was up to belittle
the Greek achievements. Not at all, that was never my intention.
On the contrary. In school I was most pleased with the ancient
Greek language; I reconstructed the two missing lines at the
begin of a poem by Archilochos using symmetry; I loved the
language in Homer's Odyssey; Greek art, those wonderful faces,
and the lovely ladies of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis of
Athens. It was Greek art which led me to ancient Egypt, and
reconstructing the Egyptian technics makes me only marvel the
more at the Greek achievements, which, by now, are becoming real
for me, they are no longer pale and lifeless claims of a creation
ex nihilo, but reconstructable achievements, real and most admirable.

Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch

> My adventures in the math-history list, Jul/Aug 1997, part 7
>
> A member of the math-history list called me a good mediator,
> another one thanked me for a simple algorithm of approximating
> the golden rectangle: 1) Draw a small square or rectangle A.
> 3) Add a square to a side of square A or to a longer side of
> rectangle A, thus you obtain rectangle AB. 3) Add a square to
> a longer side of rectangle AB, thus you obtain rectangle ABC.
> And so on. If you are a teacher of mathematics tell your pupils
> to carry out such drawings on large sheets of paper, thus they
> will get an immediate idea of the golden section, but if you
> begin with the geometrical construction almost every child will
> sigh, and hate geometry for this life and the next five lives.
> Au moindre (voilà quelques mots en français pour les ami de
> fr.soc.histoire.antique).
>
> Some members of the math-history list were "howling with the
> wolves" online while encouraging or consolating me via e-mail.
> Students, I assume, who wished to please the professors and
> were at the same time pleased to see that someone challenges
> them professors and provides a little more breathing spaces
> for themselves, the students ...
>
> Nimish Shah, a young member of the math-history list, was such
> a student. He told me via e-mail: "my heart goes out for you"
> and that he is in much the same situation as I am online, so
> he can well understand what I must feel like. The same Nimish
> Shah published the post "thoughts on swiss cheese by Nimish
> Shah" wherein he forwarded a message by Piers Bursil-Hill (hope
> I remember the name correctly). I wrote a reply to that message,
> but it was not accepted. I learned from this experience: it
> doesn't matter so much if you are getting attacked, even harshly
> so, really bad is when you are not allowed to reply and present
> your own version of the story. Which is the reason of my fight
> for the freedom of speech in the unmoderated scientific groups
> on the Usenet. Everybody who is getting attacked or falsely
> accused must have a possibility of giving back.
>
> I can tell this story of Nimish Shah by now, since he stood his
> final exams and is well established in his professional life.
>
> Franz Gnaedinger, provider of breathing space, www.seshat.ch
>
>
>
>
>
> > I got something to say, I got plenty to say, I take my time
> > for writing well considered articles, being no native speaker
> > of English I work double as much, I make even the most demanding
> > topics understandable and accessible for interested readers,
> > and I care about the layout, which is almost as important as
> > a well articulated language. Google beta makes a mess of my
> > messages. So please look up the original.
> >
> >
> > My adventures in the math-history list, Jul/Aug 1997, part 6
> >
> > One member of the math-history list was Julio Gonzalez Cabillon.
> > He knew so much about math history that someone mused whether
> > he was a consortium of people writing under the same name? Julio
> > wrote a message in Spanish. I took offense and gave back, making
> > a joke on his behalf, illustrating the difference between the
> > mathematical object a, which is identical to every other a,
> > so that a = a = a ..., whereas human beings are both equal and
> > different, so that an equation such as jgc1 = jgc2 = jgc3 ...
> > would only partly be right, because jgc1 to jgc11 are not only
> > equal, they are also different in many respects. Now Julio took
> > offense and announced to leave the list. Which raised storm
> > of protest. No, Julio, stay, don't leave! And of course it was
> > my fault that he wished to leave. Everybody was on his side,
> > nobody on mine. I had no intention at all to drive Julio away,
> > and I wished to explain my joke. However, by then I was already
> > banned from the list, and so I had to use a pseudonym. I chose
> > "Leonardo Bigollo Pisano," better known as Leonardo Fibonacci.
> > I showed up in the list as LBG and said about this:
> >
> > My name Bigollo has a double meaning: one who traveled
> > widely, and moron. Being the son of a traveling salesman
> > from Pisa, I had been born in northern Africa, have been
> > raised there, and attended a Moorish school where I have
> > been taught interesting algorithms of which you never
> > heard. And as a man I traveled widely myself, to Egypt
> > and Syria, where I gathered and reconstructed further
> > old and very old algorithms, and brought them to Paris,
> > where the professors only laughed at me, and in Italy
> > it wasn't much better, so I adopted the name "Bigollo":
> > I traveled widely, and I am treated by some as if I was
> > a moron. They do not understand what I say, and therefore
> > I am the moron, what is only logiccal ;-) Well then, I see
> > you got a moron on board the math-history list, one FG.
> > He managed to have everybody against him, and he struggles
> > not only with all of you but with his English as well. He
> > offended Julio, but he didn't really mean to do so, his
> > joke was in fact respect spiced with irony: he simply can't
> > believe that one single man could know so much in so many
> > fields of math history! And he got to tell you some quite
> > interesting things, much in my spirit, so please allow him
> > to go on posting to your list. Not everybody who looks like
> > a moron and behaves like a moron and writes like a moron is
> > actually a moron, a bigollo. Yours truly, Leonardo Bigollo
> > Pisano, aka Leonardo Fibonacci
> >
> > Julio didn't get my excuse. Later on we exchanged a couple of
> > e-mails. He told me that he was really offended; he has no easy
> > life at Montevideo, and then to be turned into an entire soccer
> > team of Julio Gonzalez Cabillons ... I told him that I had felt
> > offended by his Spanish lines, and he replied that he was just
> > trying to tell me how to convey my ideas in such a forum. To
> > which I replied that I did not get his advice correctly, then,
> > while he misunderstood my joke, which was by far more respect
> > than irony. Well, and last year, around Christmas, a student
> > asked my help regarding several questions on early mathematics.
> > She was enthusiastic over my website, informed Julio Gonzalez
> > Cabillon, who, long ago, had founded the online forum Historia
> > Matematica, and Julio sent me kind season's greetings. Now
> > I think our former conflict has been settled. He is very happy
> > with his new forum, and I am happy to have established my body
> > of early mathematical methods on my website and in several fora
> > and archives, where some of my ideas might survive and find
> > another "bigollo" to carry on, hopefully.
> >
> > Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch