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From: Lester Zick on 3 Sep 2006 12:27 On Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:56:47 -0600, Virgil <virgil(a)comcast.net> wrote: >In article <4t4kf2phpmptgut1bepl91pfbie4eab4nq(a)4ax.com>, > Lester Zick <dontbother(a)nowhere.net> wrote: > >> On Sat, 02 Sep 2006 15:54:26 -0600, Virgil <virgil(a)comcast.net> wrote: > >> >Zick seems to object to anyone else having an opinion of what "true" >> >means, and to bolster his own Know-Nothing position declines to express >> >any opinion of his own on what "true" means. >> >> Only because I don't know how to issue declarations. > >You just issued one anyway! How do you know that's true? ~v~~
From: Lester Zick on 3 Sep 2006 12:41 On 3 Sep 2006 08:08:00 -0700, "David R Tribble" <david(a)tribble.com> wrote: >Virgil wrote: >>> Since Zick implies above that HE can tell us how big "infinity" is, why >>> doesn't just he do it, or get off the pot. >> > >Lester Zick wrote: >> I already have just done it in reply to Tribble. Don't blame me if you >> can't keep up with traffic. > >Ah, yes, that "infinity is equal to the number of infinitesimals". > >Which must be interesting, except that you haven't defined >"infinitesimal". Just as neither of us has defined "is". You really have to do a little thinking on your own, sport. If you can't construe the words in the definition I'm sure a little remedial math will help. Or maybe not. > You also seem to have overlooked the fact that >infinitesimals And what are "infinitesimals" pray tell? > don't exist in standard arithmetic, which implies, >if your definition is correct, that infinity does not exist in standard >arithmetic. Oh well that's sure as hell the truth. I never suggested infinity exists in finite arithmetic. I believe the original question was how big infinity was in general terms and not in finite arithmetic terms. I've answered that. Finite arithmetic is just a trivial subset of mathematics and transfinite arithmetic trivializes mathematics and mechanics by assuming the truth of everything it describes without proof of its truth. >Perhaps you could provide us with that crucial definition? What crucial definition exactly did you have in mind, sport? ~v~~
From: John Schutkeker on 3 Sep 2006 12:43 Han.deBruijn(a)DTO.TUDelft.NL wrote in news:1157279250.900098.321300(a)i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com: > John Schutkeker wrote: > >> What >> could you possibly find interesting about the mathematics, >> if the method is obsolete? > > The method (LSFEM) indeed has become more or less obsolete, within the > Numerical Mathematics community, despite of the fact that it seemed to > be quite promising at first sight. The reason being that any attempt > to make it even reasonably efficient seemed to fail. I think I'm the > only person in the world who has been crazy enough NOT to give up. > After ten years of my children saying "dad, why are you always drawing > triangles at the backside of an envelope", I finally found a solution. > It's not difficult, only quite uncommon, if not to say: controversial. In America, we have a saying - "Publish or perish," which means that, as long as you've satisfied all the requirements of due diligence, to eliminate the probablity of error, you have an ethical obligation to publish all important results. At the very least, you can simply take your paper to a conference. Conferences accept all submissions, and there's no snide referee standing between you and the audience. It costs a few hundred dollars, but if your claims are true, it will be worth twenty or thirty times that. A single such breakthrough publication is enough to build an entire research career on. Did the professors that you showed it to have have any specific complaints, or did they just say "Everybody knows that it can't be done"? >> How's your control theory? > > Sorry. Don't get your point here ... I have an issue that I need to discuss with a creative expert.
From: Lester Zick on 3 Sep 2006 12:44 On Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:34:34 -0600, Virgil <virgil(a)comcast.net> wrote: >In article <9q4kf2pbiake5kptq0qehlljplabbe7h7m(a)4ax.com>, > Lester Zick <dontbother(a)nowhere.net> wrote: > >> On Sat, 02 Sep 2006 15:48:57 -0600, Virgil <virgil(a)comcast.net> wrote: >> >> >In article <5dhjf25pla1s873m6snta25ba1lcc5mvf5(a)4ax.com>, >> > Lester Zick <dontbother(a)nowhere.net> wrote: >> > >> >> On Fri, 01 Sep 2006 17:06:06 -0600, Virgil <virgil(a)comcast.net> wrote: >> >> >> >> >In article <eh0hf29bmf3ggmteptu3ofe6mkpq8rsp4e(a)4ax.com>, >> >> > Lester Zick <dontbother(a)nowhere.net> wrote: >> >> > >> >> >> On Fri, 01 Sep 2006 09:49:03 +0300, Aatu Koskensilta >> >> >> <aatu.koskensilta(a)xortec.fi> wrote: >> >> >> >> >> >> >Lester Zick wrote: >> >> >> >> On 31 Aug 2006 10:54:03 -0700, "MoeBlee" <jazzmobe(a)hotmail.com> >> >> >> >> wrote: >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >>> schoenfeld.one(a)gmail.com wrote: >> >> >> >>>> Definitions can be false too (i.e. "Let x be an even odd"). >> >> >> >>> That's not a definition. That's just a rendering of an open formula >> >> >> >>> whose existential closure is not a member of such theories as PA. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Which really clears things up for us, Moe. >> >> >> > >> >> >> >MoeBlee's answer might be considered somewhat more obfuscated than >> >> >> >necessary. We can rephrase it without reference to all this formal >> >> >> >stuff >> >> >> >and simply say that "let x be an even odd" is not a definition, it's >> >> >> >just a shorter version "let x be a natural number and further assume >> >> >> >that x is both even and odd" which is neither a proposition nor a >> >> >> >definition. It's probably the beginning of a - relatively boring! - >> >> >> >proof in which it is established that there is no natural that is both >> >> >> >even and odd. >> >> >> > >> >> >> >Definitions in mathematics often appear in the following forms >> >> >> > >> >> >> > "An X such that P will be called a Q" >> >> >> > "By a X we mean a Y" >> >> >> > "When P(X,Y) we often say that X glurbles Y" >> >> >> > ... >> >> >> > >> >> >> >One might quibble and say that a definition of that kind might be >> >> >> >false >> >> >> >if in fact no one will call an X such that P a Q; or if, in fact, the >> >> >> >devious author doesn't really mean a Y by X; or if "we" will not, in >> >> >> >fact, often say that X glurbles Y when P(X,Y); and so forth. However, >> >> >> >such objections ignore the role claims such as above have in >> >> >> >mathematical language, acting as they do essentially as stipulations, >> >> >> >analogously as one might say "let's call whoever it was who committed >> >> >> >this heinous crime 'John Doe'". >> >> >> >> >> >> Is a stipulation a statement? Is a definition a statement? Is a >> >> >> theorem a statement? Then my question remains as to what the >> >> >> difference is between or among statements such that one can be true or >> >> >> false and others not? Obviously the answer is that there is no such >> >> >> difference. >> >> > >> >> >And like many simple and obvious answers, it is wrong. >> >> > >> >> >If it were not wrong, even someone like Zick could come up with ways of >> >> >determining whether an excalmation was true or false or whether a >> >> >request was, or whether a question was. >> >> > >> >> >Until Zick can come up with a reasonable set of rules for determining >> >> >the truth or falsity of "Ouch!" and "Wake up!" and "Are we there yet?", >> >> >he has no case. >> >> >> >> So your answer is what? That stipulations are not statements or that >> >> definitions are not statements or that theorems are not statements or >> >> what exactly? >> > >> >My answer is that exclamations, requests, commands, questions, etc, >> >even when grammatically sentences, are not declarations, and only >> >delarations need be either true or false. >> >> So is this a declaration, sport? > >If you can't figure that out for yourself, sport, you are too dim to >comment upon mathematics at all. Whereas you prefer to comment on grammar instead. >> >If Zick wants to include "not a declaration" under the heading of >> >ambiguous, he might make a case that every sentence must have one of his >> >truth values, "true", "false" or "ambiguous". >> >> So is this not a declaration, sport? > >As far as Zick is concerned, it only matters whether Zick intends to >include among those things he calls declarations? It does? ~v~~
From: Lester Zick on 3 Sep 2006 12:46
On Sat, 02 Sep 2006 17:23:40 -0600, Virgil <virgil(a)comcast.net> wrote: >In article <l73kf29u2cku5a73g1rpfoe6ktd923vn40(a)4ax.com>, > Lester Zick <dontbother(a)nowhere.net> wrote: > >> On Sat, 02 Sep 2006 12:16:07 -0600, Virgil <virgil(a)comcast.net> wrote: > >> >Since Zick implies above that HE can tell us how big "infinity" is, why >> >doesn't just he do it, or get off the pot. >> >> I already have just done it in reply to Tribble. Don't blame me if you >> can't keep up with traffic. > >Lester Zick wrote: >> Mechanically "infinity" just refers to the number of infinitessimals. >Lester Zick wrote: > > infinity contains finite numbers. > >As neither of these is a satisfactory definition of infinity, I daresay to a grammarian it wouldn't appear so. >independent of context, Zick has not produced a satisfactory definition >of it at all. Of what exactly? ~v~~ |