#999...999: When is a textbook not a textbook? Was: new textbook: "Mathematical-Physics (p-adic primer) for students of age 6 onwards"
- From: Proginoskes <CCHeckman@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:00:04 -0800 (PST)
When is a textbook not a textbook? When it has no exercises in it!
AP can hardly be faulted for not knowing this; he probably hasn't even
seen a textbook in 30 years. So where are the exercises where the
student is asked to try to do calculations like
.....1286432168421 * ....7292438127931
on his/her own, and then check the answers against the back of the
book?
***
Other concerns:
(1) AP ought to be posting the chapters of his book on his webpage,
and updating them when he finds mistakes and/or spots that need
clarification. I doubt many people will want to read through a dozen
Usenet threads, each consisting of a few hundred posts, to find out
the material, and whether AP changed his mind about his initial posts.
(2) Can a machine be built to do the calculations automatically?
(2a) If not, then people will have to go back to calculating by hand,
where we were fifty years ago. If they even want to accept the new
number system. And if AP dies before this is clarified, then no one
will know exactly what he was talking about. (BTW, the last major
change of how numbers were handled was due to Fibonacci's _Liber
Abaci_, where he introduced the decimal system. I suspect that AP
might now start comparing himself to Fibonacci, in addition to
Archimedes and whoever else he thinks he's the reincarnation of.)
(2b) If you have an infinite number of digits, then you can't expect
the calculation in a finite amount of time, but there should be a
program which will provide the digits, in some order, as it runs.
(3) AP thinks "Physics is king", which means his numbers need to have
some use in the real world, or they are useless. He has shown how a
lot of theorems change in this new system of numbers, but he has not
shown how they can be used to calculate something useful. He ought to
be able to come up with an application before the end of the year, if
there is one. ("Physicists might find one in the future" doesn't
count; it has to be here NOW.)
(4) Why hasn't AP been numbering the "chapters" of his book with AP-
adics?
--- Christopher Heckman
.
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