Re: What would it take?

From: W. Dale Hall (mailtowd-hall_at_pacbell.net)
Date: 10/09/04 

Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2004 00:52:40 GMT

James Harris wrote:

> Now I face a situation where I claim to have important mathematics
> which other people claim is false.
>

Um, speaking as one of those other people, I have provided
simple arithmetic that refutes your conclusion in the paper
you're so hot under the collar about. I have shown it in
this newsgroup, and I provided it to the editors of SWJPAM
who so unceremoniously yanked your paper.

> I'm just one person, there are many of them, and they refuse to just
> talk out the math logically and objectively.
>

Oh, is that why you refuse to respond to my requests to show
me where my argument goes awry? After all, if you have a
correct argument that [mumble] is true, and someone shows
that [not mumble] is true instead, either the original argument
or the refutation must be in error. You have kept this nonsense
up for months, without responding to my argument (except to make
some bogus claim about a weird assumption).

Do you really think I'm about to slink away?

> I end up arguing with the SAME PEOPLE who have argued literally for
> years over the same things, and they cheat.
>

It's cheating to tell folks the truth?

> And before you say I'm being paranoid consider what happened with a
> paper of mine, which a group of sci.math posters successfully managed
> to censor out of publication in a peer reviewed math journal by gang
> emailing the editors:
>
> See http://rattler.cameron.edu/swjpam/vol2-03.html
>
> I mean, come on, I'm just one guy, but if a group of sci.math'ers are
> willing to use those kind of tactics, what can I do?
>

If my rebuttal had been full of holes, do you really think the
editors of SWJPAM would have acted at all? I don't agree with their
actions, but you can't imagine that they acted solely out of fear
of displeasing the Great and Powerful OZ, can you?

> The chief editor yanked my paper basically immediately upon getting
> *claims* that it was wrong, without there being time enough for him to
> have actually bothered to check, when the journal had my paper for
> over NINE MONTHS before!
>

ooooh. *claims*.

You imagine that my argument takes over five minutes to verify?

Have you tried to test it?

I provided enough arithmetic for whichever author it was to go to his
computer and construct all the products that I claimed were true. The
argument is absolutely transparent to anyone who knows the least bit
of algebra, and is unassailable, unlike the gauze that you hope to
fashion into an airtight vessel.

> You can see this group operating on these newsgroups now as they make
> sure to try and reply to my posts when I post content, mathematical or
> otherwise.
>
> If there's math, then usually it'll be "Nora Baron" or *** Winter
> replying to me, so that Arturo Magidin can reply to them since he says
> that he won't reply to me now.
>

Hmm... It's your notion that these folks step in *for the purpose* of
getting Magidin to step in? It seems to me that he only enters the
fray to pose corrections or simplifications.

BTW, clever swipe at Arturo Magidin's integrity,

        "since he says that he won't reply to me now."

Everyone knows that you specifically requested (yes, at his offering)
him to stop interacting with you. You sure want it both ways, don't
you?

> If there's a lot of commentary then it'll be Jesse Hughes, David
> Ullrich, or Gib Bogle, among others.
>

Oh, "Commentary".

That's a real hoot. JSH pontificating about logic, about Galois Theory,
about algebra.

"Commentary"

teeheehee.

> That's just 6 of the standard crew, and you can see some of the others
> that pop in and out.
>
> I'm ONE GUY. I need to know what it would take to convince a sizeable
> number of you that there's a chance I could be right and that all of
> this dedicated activity is actually--oddly and bizarrely enough--meant
> to hide the truth.
>

(MUSIC SWELLS AS THE LIGHTS DIM,
        EXCEPT FOR A SMALL SPOT ON JSH)

        To dream ... the impossible dream ...
        To fight ... the unbeatable foe ...
        To bear ... with unbearable sorrow ...
        To run ... where the brave dare not go ...
        To right ... the unrightable wrong ...
        To love ... pure and chaste from afar ...
        To try ... when your arms are too weary ...
        To reach ... the unreachable star ...

        This is my quest, to follow that star ...
        No matter how hopeless, no matter how far ...
        To fight for the right, without question or pause ...
        To be willing to march into Hell, for a Heavenly cause ...

> Now I've demonstrated my willingness to talk about the details of my
> work from prime counting to advanced polynomial factorization but the
> people who reply to me are part of the cabal.
>

Sorry, only us caballeros here!

> Are there any others willing to talk out the math?
>
> Is there anyone who has a solution?
>
> And, consider, I tried publication. The sci.math'ers gang emailed the
> editors of the Southwest Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics.
>
> Other editors are saying to me that I should go to other journals!!!
>
> It's a massive passing of the buck on a huge academic scale.
>
> So what do I do? What would you do?
>

I've suggested learning some algebra, so you get at least a sense
of the fact that this isn't all just made up to spite you. Hell,
you could probably learn a little from cracking open a book and
working through it. Getting in on the actual language would buy
you a little bit of credit.

You would have a lot more if you had some knowledge of, say,
Galois Theory, before announcing that it was overinterpreted
(whatever on Earth that means).

By the way, if you refrained from announcing that the stuff you
had just stumbled across was beyond the capabilities of everyone
else on Earth, that wouldn't hurt.

Want an example? Try this:

        It's a stunning and argument killing result as no
        mathematician on the planet can deliver the factor,
        and if challenged they may do odd things.

        Like Kenneth Ribet or Andrew Wiles might at first
        pause, as they consider the question, and maybe
        scribble a bit, but eventually, realize it can't
        be done.

        It's also the kind of demonstration that travels
        quickly over the Internet.

        Now you can find an algebraic integer factor of 6,
        like 2 or 3, or sqrt(2), or sqrt(3), and possibly
        many have been lulled into naive complacency because
        of the infinite decomposability of 6 in the ring
        of algebraic integers.

        The full result--more formally so that there's no
        room for confusion--is that in the ring of algebraic
        integers, given a non-unit irrational algebraic integer
        A, that is a factor of a composite natural C it is
        IMPOSSIBLE to find a non-unit algebraic integer factor
        of A that is coprime to any prime factor of C.

        To refute, someone needs to just demonstrate the contrary,
        by delivering a factor.

        At least some one of you should apologize to me.

For the record, I'll note that it didn't take more than a day or two
for you to see the need to retract the claim (but not the boasting
that announced the claim, which you never retracted).

I've also suggested responding to my bit of arithmetic, to tell me
what you think is incorrect with it. Notice that people are saying
that you reach incorrect conclusions via your arguments. This means
that your arguments are invalid, and it makes no sense to wade through
them until you agree that the conclusions you reach are invalid.

As long as you're trying to defend as valid an argument that everyone
else can plainly see as being deeply flawed, there's not going to be any
real cooperation.

The knee-jerk responses of "you're lying" or "the algebraic integers
are flawed" don't make your case (just in case you didn't know this).
Your habit of trotting out the same old trivial examples that work
the way you want them to work is foolish, since a single example can
*never* prove a general result; you should pay much more attention to
the counterexamples that you apparently have admitted exist. Don't you
know, it only takes *one* counterexample to rebut an argument?

>
> James Harris

Just my two bits' worth.

Dale