Re: Math research, passion is importantQ
From: Will Twentyman (wtwentyman_at_read.my.sig)
Date: 06/19/04
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Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 14:02:39 -0400
anonymous@mathforum.org wrote:
> On 18 Jun 2004, Will Twentyman wrote:
>
>>James Harris is Nuts wrote:
>
>>To be perfectly honest, Quinn has shown no signs of losing his temper,
>>or acting in an immature fashion.
>
>
> Will, you haven't looked at a recent post by Quinn,
> repeated (way down) below. You judge whether he
> lost his temper or acted immature.
>
> At first, in the recent James Harris posts, Quinn
> posted by only his first name and with a fake
> E-mail address to defend James Harris.
Many people post by fake email addresses to preserve their privacy and
to prevent their email from being harvested by spambots. Would you view
me as deceitful if I only posted as "Will" rather than "Will Twentyman"?
Is it deceitful of me to post by a handle on certain gaming forums
where everyone goes only by their handle?
> As I challenged James Harris repeatedly on his
> assertions, and after I and others suggested that
> maybe "Quinn" and the fake E-mail address were
> James Harris anonymously defending himself as to
> whether some mathematicians reviewed Harris' proof,
> Quinn then began posting under his full name "Quinn
> Tyler Jackson" to show that Harris was not faking
> being "Quinn", and Quinn also revealed that he and
> James Harris were colleagues and friends in a "closed
> list", showing that Quinn was not some objective
> defender of James Harris.
The fact that they have had discussions on the mega-society, or whatever
it is, doesn't say a whole lot. I saw some of those discussions, and
James was far less inclined to threatening there than here. What that
list was got revealed quite quickly.
> Was Quinn mature by secretly hiding his identity and
> association with James Harris? Or was it intellectually
> dishonest to wrongly back up his buddy as to alleged facts?
>
> Will, perhaps you can explain why neither Quinn nor his
> good friend James Harris provided the name or E-mail
> address of a single mathematician of their alleged
> "closed list" who allegedly reviewed Harris' proof,
> and who allegedly failed to find an error in it.
Again, once we had Quinn's full name, it was easy to find who it
probably was. There is a difference, in my opinion, between being
secretive and being dishonest. Especially when the other person may not
want to be revealed.
> I repeatedly challenged them to put up or shut up
> on their assertion that:
> "several mathematicians failed to find the error".
I don't know the credentials of them, but I suspect the only dishonesty
you could find is in granting some of them the title of "mathematician".
Also, there are some things in James's work that I know to be wrong,
but couldn't find the errors in. There have been others where I
couldn't see if it was wrong or not. I think of myself as a
mathematician, should I change that?
[snip]
> Is Quinn acting mature or even tempered, like you suggest?
Compared to some of the people here, definitely. He may not behave the
way you would like him to, but I haven't seen him start ranting and
raving, nor have I seen him making paranoid claims. All things
considered, the worst I wish to say of him is I think he is ignorant of
James's past behavior. There's no crime in that.
> Either:
>
> A) no mathematicians actually reviewed it, and so
> Harris and Quinn LIED to support their lame position,
> that errors in Harris' paper were hard to find by
> mathematicians (but Harris somehow found them himself);
>
> B) mathematicians in the high-IQ group did review it,
> and missed the error, thus suggesting that the high-IQ
> folks are not so smart, or just not very skilled
> mathematicians (probably amateurs), and so Harris and
> Quinn did not want to embarass their high-IQ group and
> in turn themselves for being members of such group; or
This would be closest to my guess. Regardless, I don't see it as being
particularly relevant to the discussion of Harris's accuracy. Other
mathematicians missed the errors to, causing his (brief) publication.
> C) Harris and Quinn did not want verification or lack
> thereof in any way, shape, or manner for their
> assertions on this newsgroup.
>
[rest deleted]
Quinn may not have behaved as you like. Feel free to draw your own
conclusions. If you wish to disagree with me, fine. I prefer to give
people the benefit of the doubt. James has crossed that line, Quinn has
not.
I could just as easily claim to have a wonderful result in geometry that
I've proven. If you challenged me to produce it, I would not come
forward promptly. The reason? I haven't gotten around to transferring
the work from hand-written to electronic media. Mind you, I have no
clue if the result is actually wonderful or not.
-- Will Twentyman email: wtwentyman at copper dot net
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