Re: Abolish Fractions???? the nutty professor 3 -> out now !!

On Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:25:36 EST, tommy1729 <tommy1729@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Gerry myerson wrote:

In article
<gig2q3d6ll02jc6ge044n7paum35gjn19v@xxxxxxx>,
quasi <quasi@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:38:02 -0800 (PST), amzoti
<amzoti@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Thoughts?


http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/mathscience/2008
-01-23-fractions_N.htm

He's a kook.

When you've accomplished one-tenth of what he has,
maybe you can call him a kook. In the meantime,
I suggest you
1. don't believe everything you read in usatoday,
2. keep a civil finger on your keyboard, and
3. wait until you see a detailed exposition by the
man himself.

--
Gerry Myerson (gerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) (i -> u for
email)

so you support the idea ??

the idea is even too crazy for JSH !!

i dont know about america but here in europe you cant become a prof in math if you cant work with fractions. :p

abolish fractions ?? get real !!

he should have better said abolish aleph_3 instead of fractions.

will mathematics in the future include aleph 3 , aleph 4 , aleph 82 , beth 34 , epsilon 72 ...
but no longer fractions.

nice going america !!

why might as well replace sqrt(x) with a mathematical god proof.
( certain american religious politicians would be pleased )

what's next ? abolish non-euclidean geometry ???

abolish matrices ???

we might as well hand over the fields medal to JSH for his ring of objects then.

and since we dont work with fractions anymore we can also forget about divisions ...

and thus also factoring or primes...

in fact , abolish number theory id say.

the nutty professor 3 -> out now !!

But if you watch the video,

<http://www.sas.upenn.edu/home/news/sixtysec_lectures_archive.html#D>

it will be (almost) immediately obvious that he's not serious -- it
was just a spoof. In other words, he's just kidding!

But he got taken literally, both by the news media, and by others as
well. Many sci.math regulars took it more seriously than they should
have for the simple reason that the idea was presented by a well
known, highly respected mathematician. In other words, "The Emperor's
Clothes" phenomenon.

I'll proudly point out that even before watching the video, I wasn't
fooled for a minute.

But it just goes to show how dangerous kidding can be. Given that he
actually _is_ kidding (I mean he really is, isn't he?), he could
inadvertently get taken seriously by the _funders_ of education, thus
seriously damaging math education in the US (and possibly the world --
after all -- if the US does it, it must be right, or at least, that's
what funders of education in other countries might conclude). Thus, a
silly joke, presumably intended to create publicity for his book, sets
mathematics back a few thousand years. Nice going, DeTurck!

As an analogy, to show how kidding can potentially be dangerous,
consider the following hypothetical scenario ...

Thus, what if Bush were to _joke_ publicly, saying that he thinks we
should "nuke" Iran. People might take him seriously. The next thing
you know, with the resulting paranoia, a world war might ensue.

quasi
.

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