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

frgn_at_bluemail.ch
Date: 12/11/04 

Date: 11 Dec 2004 00:05:32 -0800

Pour les membres du groupe fr.soc.histoire.antique: esq vous
avez vus qui usurpe le nom du votre group pour Soi-Même ?..
pour faire la foire en votre nom !..

My adventures in the math-history list, Jul/Aug 1997, part 9

Monet and his painter friends were excluded from the Saloon
at Paris, and so they exhibited their paintings in a free,
independent saloon. An art critic saw their exhibition and
went plain mangos. He dubbed the bunch of savage painters
Impressionists, for a painting by Monet that shows an orange
sun in the fog above the river Seine, and then he went real
wild: no pregnant woman should go see those paintings, for
she would suffer from an immediate abortion; neither should
labile persons, for they will be struck by a sudden fit ...

A couple of weeks ago the art house of Zurich opened a big
Monet show, mostly flowers, and paintings from Monet's garden
at Givenchy. People are visiting the show by thousands. And
nobody warns them of the consequences a look at his paintings
can have. The visitors enjoy the paintings, enjoy them very
much, and those who know about the turmoil Monet had caused
in his time spice up their joy with a good laugh.

Nobody would write such a silly critic nowadays. The paintings
by the Impressionist reach the highest prices at auctions.
We see their beauty, and we recognize their value. We are much
brighter than people were in those times. We are no such fools
as they have been.

Everybody is allowed to paint in the impressionistic manner.
And if somebody came up, say, with new ideas regarding early
mathematics? We would not be baffled. We would have a careful
look at his numbers and methods. If the numbers are good and
the algorithms work, we would welcome him in the math-history
list, in other online fora, we would certainly not exclude him
and force him to survive in the jungle of the Usenet, we would
not call his work trash, we would not speak of obfuscating
mathematics, we would not simply ward him off with a prioris,
ex cathedras, eo ipsos and anyways. On the contrary, we would
invite him to publish in peer reviewed journals. And everybody
does of course agree that a prosepring global society requires
a fair history of civilization.

Things are so much better nowadays.

Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch

(Hope that my name shows up, and not my e-mail address,
tried to fix it, until now in vain)

> 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

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