Re: SF: Generalized SFT's

Tim Peters wrote: 
[cutting the distribution list down to just sci.math, and suggesting
 others do too]

Sorry, I should have done that. This is a purely sci.math affair - the others don't do any of the work so they don't deserve to enjoy it. :-)

[Mark Atherton]

I can't work out how to use your algebraic proof as an algorithm to factor (for example) 15. I'm obviously missing something here. Why
don't you humour me and Justin and help us see your method?

He doesn't have a factoring method here, just a proof that factors can be derived from some-- but not all --elements of an infinite set.

Sorry, I was just playing dumb. Hoping to entice him into explaining to an unprejudiced newbie (not many of those left for JSH) exactly how his algebra translates into an algorithm for factoring large numbers. Other than simply guessing, obviously. Unfortunately he seems to have made another round of responses without answering me.

I am starting to wonder whether he has slipped from mathematical crank to supertroll. Some of his later posts are so irrational that either he is laughing at us or he has become overtly psychotic.

Over in the "Full Retraction with my Apologies" thread, James wrote this, about an earlier, similar episode:

    I'd come on and rant a bit at posters and about mathematicians not
    accepting my work, and challenge people to check for themselves.

    And then I found out I was wrong.

    I don't know if I can describe the feeling, but it's a horrible
    feeling.

    To me it was such a huge, horrible thing, and I don't know how long
    it was before I posted that I was wrong, and pulled down websites,
    and settled into this new world of going from thinking I was on top
    of the world--or about to be--to realizing that the posters who kept
    saying I was wrong, were right.

Does that sound like a man who doesn't fear being shown wrong? Every bit of his behavior now is consistent with that being shown wrong here too would indeed be a "huge, horrible thing" to him, a thing he'd do nearly anything to avoid enduring again.

He won't try it because _trying_ it, even once, leaves no doubt about whether he's right. At some level he must know that already. Why? Heh -- because there's no other comprehensible reason for refusing to try. He knows darned well too that his previous rounds of "proven correct" factoring algorithms (back when he still tried to give algorithms) were proved wrong by trying examples, and small examples at that.

I think that it is possible that even JSH recognises, perhaps subconsciously, that ultimately this is one claim he can't defend. Either he factorizes an RSA challenge number or he slinks off. Hmmm, wonder which one to put my money on... Probably neither - he'll just start ignoring his failure with SFT and declare that he has proven/disproven the Riemann hypothesis. Judging from an earlier thread he's not sure yet which it will be.

Mark Atherton
.

Relevant Pages

  • SF: Back to theory
    ... I see a lot of negative postings about my ideas, ... factoring is getting a lot of bashing, but hey, it's just an idea. ... Basically with the latest surrogate factoring I've been analyzing the ... algorithms, which I'll get to later, require that both j and T be ...
    (sci.math)
  • SF: Back to theory
    ... I see a lot of negative postings about my ideas, ... factoring is getting a lot of bashing, but hey, it's just an idea. ... Basically with the latest surrogate factoring I've been analyzing the ... algorithms, which I'll get to later, require that both j and T be ...
    (sci.crypt)
  • Re: JSH: Contradictory behavior, issue of math fraud
    ... In order for your algorithm to be pertinent, it needs to bring something that other factoring algorithms don't have, like the most efficient when the two numbers are same order of magnitude, are be most efficient over all. ... can't just downplay or lie about, and in so doing prove that you DID ... What punishment fits the crime? ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: SF: Incorrect equations
    ... >> My take on it is that I have some deep fear that the work is too ... I declared surrogate factoring mature just recently. ... > and asymptotically) than existing algorithms in all cases is perhaps ...
    (sci.crypt)
  • Re: SF: Back to theory
    ... > factoring is getting a lot of bashing, but hey, it's just an idea. ... > Basically with the latest surrogate factoring I've been analyzing the ... > algorithms, which I'll get to later, require that both j and T be ... > One thing that is clear is that the denominator of y for rational y's ...
    (sci.math)