Re: More math stuff, truth and social reality

From: Matt Gutting (tchrmatt_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 03/07/05 

Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 08:15:54 -0500

I don't generally respond to your postings, James especially the
non-mathematical ones; but I felt compelled to say something in
response to this.

jstevh@msn.com wrote:
> One thing that I learned from my misadventures and adventures in the
> area of amateur pursuit of mathematical discoveries is that the truth
> doesn't help you much.
>
> There are any number of ways I can demonstrate the validity and
> importance of my work across a number of areas, from prime number
> research to advanced algebraic number theory, to now, factoring, where
> the math people have basically set up one criteria to block the proofs:
>
> They deny.
>

Assuming you have the truth, denial is indeed wrong and indeed foolish.
However, the mere fact that so *many* people have detected so many errors
in so many areas of your work is generally thought to be a good (although
not perfect) indicator that there *are*, in fact, serious flaws in your
work. In other words, it is not clear to me, nor (apparently) to many
others, that you have in fact demonstrated the validity of your work
in any of the aforementioned areas.

> To break through, notice, I have to have the best and fastest out
> there.
>
> If I can't *personally* build the fastest prime counting function ever,
> they act like my work should be dismissed.
>
> If I can't factor better than anything else out there, they act like my
> factoring research should be ignored.
>

To the best of my understanding, this is not what the great majority of
people are saying. With respect to your factoring work in particular,
people don't seem to be requesting you to provide an algorithm that factors
faster and better than any others; most of them are simply asking you to
provide an algorithm. If you have, indeed, provided one which these posters
are missing or ignoring, it is your obligation to point out that algorithm
very very clearly indeed. Many posters have implemented algorithms which
they *believe* reflect the mathematics you are demonstrating; these
posters appear not to be insisting that your algorithm be "the best and
fastest", but to be insisting that it work as well as some methods which
are generally accepted as reasonably efficient. There appears to be some
question as to whether this is in fact true.

Even an inefficient method could be theoretically useful if the reasoning
on which it was based could lead to other theoretical breakthroughs. In
this case, there again seems to be some question as to whether your
algorithm will in fact do this.

Matt

> With research where I can't so easily demonstrate, like with my other
> work in algebraic number theory, they just change the rules, so I get a
> paper published in a small electronic math journal, and most math
> people ignore it, while the sci.math'ers band together to email the
> journal!!!
>
> The journal breaks basic academic rules and yanks my paper, at first
> with no mention of it, only later saying it was "Withdrawn" which could
> actually mislead some people into thinking I withdrew it, when the
> editors of the journal did.
>
> Now that journal shut down, and the sci.math'ers talked as if it were
> nothing, as if it were the most normal damn thing in the world, because
> the truth is not what these people care about, at all.
>
> Before I came along you may have naively thought that if some guy, even
> if you thought he was a bit obnoxious, came along and found his own
> prime counting function then that would be news.
>
> Not in today's math world, where mathematicians tell you they decide
> what's important or not.
>
> Before I came along, an amateur mathematician getting a math paper
> published showing a major result would have been news.
>
> That paper being yanked under email pressure from Usenet posters would
> have been news as well.
>
> A new paper covering that original result and more ending up at
> Princeton to be reviewed would have been news as well.
>
> But the math people come forward and post about how all the facts just
> make *me* look crazy. Somehow according to them, each and every detail
> can be explained away to the negative so that there's nothing at all to
> my research, nothing of importance in anything I do, and oh yeah,
> shouldn't I just quit posting?
>
> But it's Usenet for God's sake! The math people changed the rules here
> too so that they can tell posters whether to even post or not!!! And
> they act like that's just normal as well!!!
>
> It doesn't matter what the area, if they want something then they say
> that's logical, reasonable, and the way it should be, despite what's
> actually a value, like posting and not just commanding other posters,
> on Usenet.
>
> They are not rational. They make up their own rules, and then break
> them as they see fit. The math people are not who you think they are.
>
> Notice we're talking about *mathematics* where I have actual proof,
> including mathematical proofs, which the math people blithely ignore,
> and then they lie about just about everything, and they keep getting
> away with it.
>
> You have no security, no foundation in the belief that the truth can
> help you when it comes to situations where a LOT of powerful people
> don't want to accept that truth.
>
> Look around you people. Look at how many things are debated into the
> ground despite the evidence.
>
> And look at how rarely the truth matters in today's world.
>
>
> James Harris
>

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