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

On Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:59:49 -0500, quasi <quasi@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

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 calling him a "kook" isn't the same as saying that he's
kidding. (A "kook" is presumably kidding himself, which is
not the same as someone intentionally kidding others.)

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?),

I have to say, it still isn't obvious to me what he is doing,
even after watching the video three times. (But I do have
some difficulty reading facial expressions - perhaps I'm a
bit autistic, I don't know.)

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!

The trouble with the publicity theory is that the lecture was given
in 2004, and yet the book still isn't out, in early 2008 - which is
taking the idea of advance publicity too far! Such an intentional
spoof would only work if there was only a short time lag. So I'm
still baffled, and I still think I must be missing the joke.

--
Angus Rodgers
(twirlip@ eats spam; reply to angusrod@)
Contains mild peril
.

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