Re: JSH: Statement of the problem

On Jun 10, 2:32 pm, s...@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On 10 juin, 11:57, jst...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:



Mathematicians are so completely disconnected from the real world that
they can no longer be trusted to tell the truth even about mathematics
itself. Their world is ruled by vote, and in its democracy,
mathematical proof can be useless against the group opinion.

In fact, mathematicians today no longer believe in proof outside of
their opinion.

See: http://www.maa.org/devlin/devlin_06_03.html

Independent research can simply be ignored by the current mathematical
community without regard to even basic proof of value by measures that
most people including experts in other academic areas are known to
consider the most compelling reasons for importance, like uniqueness
in an important area.

So I can have a find of mathematical function that finds prime numbers
and counts them in a way never before seen, as it uses the summation
of a partial difference equation, which is distinguished by allowing
you to move to a partial differential equation, and mathematicians can
simply state that is not of interest, and not be compelled to do what
most would consider the right thing.

Worse, even publication no longer matters, as with other mathematical
research of mine I did get published, following a well laid out
process involving formal peer review, and that publication was not
only reversed by a few emails from posters of the sci.math newsgroup
falsely claiming error in my paper, but later the journal itself
simply shut down, and the hosting school Cameron University went so
far as to remove all mention of the now defunct journal.

That journal and the papers that had been published in it for nine
years would have simply gone into total limbo if not for the efforts
of EMIS, which continues to provide the published editions on its
mirror servers.

See: http://www.emis.de/journals/SWJPAM/

The full problem then is that mathematicians are capable not only of
ignoring mathematical proof, but also of ignoring important research
easily seen to be unique by people in other fields, which can be made
relevant to other fields, as I've pointed out by noting that at the
heart of my prime counting function is a discrete damped oscillator.

The article I link to above is titled "When is a proof?" and is
written by Keith Devlin, a mathematician at Stanford. He talks of two
types of "proof", where one is proof as most people think of it and
the other is the following quote:

"The left wing answer (fuzzy, democratic, and human centered) is that
a proof is an argument that convinces a typical mathematician of the
truth of a given statement."

I emailed him an early draft of the paper that did eventually get
published by the now defunct SWJPAM and retracted, before that event,
and his reply was that it was the left wing type.

Um, I use VERY basic mathematics deliberately now with a focus on
quadratics (simplifying from the paper which used cubics), and it does
not matter, as mathematicians seem to have escaped completely to a
position that a proof is only what they want to be a proof.

And you have a dead math journal as some evidence of how big this
issue is.

But it is bigger than mathematics because it goes to how academia does
research.

Editors as proven by those at SWJPAM can make bizarre decisions that
are all about fuzzy, democratic, human-centered stuff, and nothing
about the value of the research.

I suggest to you that the current system of formal peer review is out-
dated and itself defunct, and it is past time for a system of
independent measures probably including cross-disciplinary
evaluations.

Mathematicians have good reason to fear my discoveries as they can
either help close doors on research that many mathematicians around
the world are working on--getting pay and often state funding, as well
as prizes--or show errors in the field itself, so protecting against
the truth is about academic fraud.

But more importantly than their will to ignore important research is
the ability to get away with it on this scale.

I suggest to you that academics in almost any area of research can
potentially do the same because the system is not setup for proper
policing despite the tremendous advantage members of a discipline can
get by dissembling as a group about information in their field.

Only independent evaluations by people who are not themselves invested
can bring back some degree of certainty beyond the verisimilitude of
academic assertions. Are they actually true based on all the
information available, or is it just that for some academics the
appearance of truth is important for funding and their careers?

My own personal belief is that the mathematicians have shown the flaws
in an out-dated academic system that carries too much from medieval
times and ignores what we know today about human nature and the
ability of even large groups of highly intelligent people to ignore
inconvenient truths.

It is past time that academics lost the glow of being better than
ordinary people, and we accepted that they too can engage in large
scale fraud at a level so high that even the death of a journal can be
tossed off as just an ordinary, every day thing just so that they do
not have to handle the truth.

When the future of our species depends on how we handle the truth, the
issue is more than just, academic.

The problem as stated I think needs to be answered but I do not know
what the answer is.

I present it to the group for suggestions:

Is there any solution to academics deciding against acceptance of
inconvenient truths in their own field? Or specifically, can
mathematicians be made to accept proof that they do not want as it is
inconvenient to their careers?

If so, how?

James Harris

The all pervading cause of this problem is the fact that orthodox
"research" is grant driven. Consequently, any work that would
result in any lessening of the general confusion which is the
unquellable source of all sorts of grant requests aimed at
funding eventual papers (whatever their objective value) is
not welcome in the community by definition.


But to have an entire journal go belly-up like SWJPAM did?

Or to have the first finding of a discrete oscillation from equations
used to count prime numbers by summing a partial difference equation,
which is significant because being a partial difference equation it
selects out primes on its own, and leads directly to a partial
differential equation, being just ignored?

I talk about that as a simplifying result, but why is it exactly?

Because it allows you to explain quite simply the prime number
theorem, and then it also hints at a possible reason for why physicist
find prime numbers popping up in the real world.

If academia has gone to "publish or perish" to such an extent that any
result can be blocked to help preserve a few old guys dwindling
careers then academia needs to be reformed.

ALL of it, and not just the sciences as the weakness in academia is
the ability to just lie about results and have your buddies--otherwise
known as colleagues--back you up no matter what as in doing so they
protect themselves as well.

This is why also we see this unending stream of mostly
meaningless repeats from an infinity of slightly varying
angles regarding old discoveries revamped as if they
were fresh.

Tens of thousands of orthodox "scientists" have to make a
living off the grant auger and it doesn't seem that it is
about to be emptied any time soon.

Fact of life.

André Michaud

Yet reform is part of that pendulum swinging thing.

Newton himself was at the forefront of major reforms without which we
would not have modern physics today.

Or do you disagree?


James Harris


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Partial difference equation, primes
    ... >> Here dSis a partial difference equation. ... doesn't change the facts. ... which makes them technology beyond what ... >> mathematicians had before my work. ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: Partial difference equation, primes
    ... >> Here dSis a partial difference equation. ... doesn't change the facts. ... which makes them technology beyond what ... >> mathematicians had before my work. ...
    (sci.physics)
  • JSH: desperately clinging on
    ... JSH vs. Ullrich ... mathematicians who may now realize that the proof is correct can get ... postings are creating such frenetic activity from Magidin and now you ... My position has been and remains that you *must* tell the truth or be ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: Partial difference equation, primes
    ... >> My prime counting function uses a partial difference equation. ... Mathematicians are more and more getting on my nerves as they want ... so many people keep repeating the same thing that it must be true. ... They're insulting your intelligence with their lies. ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: Partial difference equation, primes
    ... >> My prime counting function uses a partial difference equation. ... Mathematicians are more and more getting on my nerves as they want ... so many people keep repeating the same thing that it must be true. ... They're insulting your intelligence with their lies. ...
    (sci.physics)