Am I a crank?
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From: Han de Bruijn on 8 Sep 2006 03:23 G.E. Ivey wrote: > A general rule: If you are capable of considering the possiblility > that you are a crank, then you are NOT! Is the perpetual doubt about the correctness of your own mathematical formulas a necessary and sufficient condition for not being a crank? Han de Bruijn
From: Han de Bruijn on 8 Sep 2006 03:41 Dik T. Winter wrote: > This is wrong. Adding axioms gives the possibility to prove stronger > (and more) theorems. And if you add too many, you may find that you > have the possibility to prove contradictionary theorems (and that > way show that there is no consistency). One of my professors told us a story about a PhD thesis with a very elegant axiom system in it. Unfortunately, the objects for which the axioms were valid all turned out to be equivalent to zero (yes: 0 ). (Zero is, indeed, a mathematical object with very nice properties)-; Once upon a time, I discovered a very elegant recipe, in an accepted PhD thesis, for constructing a set of mutually cummutative matrices. I thought: let us apply that algorithm to 2x2 matrices. And expected for example the matrices of planar rotation to come out. But alas .. only the Unity matrix could be constructed. So I ran to my professor and told him the recipe in that PhD thesis was rather useless. Well, I shouldn't have been so naive in the first place, because everybody thought it was a very good (read: incomprehensible) thesis .. Han de Bruijn
From: fernando revilla on 8 Sep 2006 09:08 > Han deBruijn wrote : > > > Have no idea. But I'm sure that 10 / 5 = 2 can be > > derived from them. > > Han de Bruijn Fernando Revilla ( i.e. myself ) wrote: > Let us see, 10/5= 2 iff 2*5=10 ( by definition of the > > quotient ). Now 2*5=5+5 ( by definition of the > product ). > > Now 5+5=10 is synthetic a priory and has to do with > the > pure intuition of time. > > Surely there are mathematicians who think that global > > formalism goes further mathematical truth, but that > is > another question. > > Fenando. Or, if (N, S, 0) is a Dedekind-Peano structure and we denote 1=S0, 2=S1, 3=S2, 4=S3, 5=S4, 6=S5, 7=S6, 8=S7, 9=S8, 10=S9 and using the definition of addition in the standard recursive way i) a+0=a, ii) a+Sb=S(a+b) you can establish that 5+5=10 as in the following example: 2+3=2+S2=S(2+2)=S(2+S1)=SS(2+1)=SS(2+S0)=SSS(2+0) =SSS2= SS3=S4=5. So, we have ( proved ?, testified ? ) that 2+3=5. Fernando.
From: Lester Zick on 8 Sep 2006 13:29 On Thu, 07 Sep 2006 17:35:36 -0600, Virgil <virgil(a)comcast.net> wrote: >In article <ij61g2dls6044ds806e87t95r8h4tf1ogv(a)4ax.com>, > Lester Zick <dontbother(a)nowhere.net> wrote: > >> On Thu, 07 Sep 2006 13:26:12 -0600, Virgil <virgil(a)comcast.net> wrote: >> >> >In article <mah0g29jhf7u65h4um3k1jebid22us331o(a)4ax.com>, >> > Lester Zick <dontbother(a)nowhere.net> wrote: >> > >> >> On Wed, 06 Sep 2006 17:13:32 -0600, Virgil <virgil(a)comcast.net> wrote: >> > >> >> >Zick is the one whose trivia is founded in the trivium. Math is a part >> >> >of the quadrivium. >> >> >> >> And modern math is founded, whatever that means, in the trivium and >> >> not in the quadrivium. >> > >> >And how does someone so self-decaredly ignorant of mathematics know this? >> >> Because you self declaredly proclaim assumptions of truth in lieu of >> demonstrations. > >Zick frequently does this, but why does he deceive himself that >mathematicians emulate his idiocies? Because they don't and probably can't demonstrate their trivial assumptions of truth. ~v~~
From: Virgil on 8 Sep 2006 14:33
In article <03a3g2p6s0o7jc14jt3b2pcp5remsieb8n(a)4ax.com>, Lester Zick <dontbother(a)nowhere.net> wrote: > On Thu, 07 Sep 2006 17:35:36 -0600, Virgil <virgil(a)comcast.net> wrote: > > >In article <ij61g2dls6044ds806e87t95r8h4tf1ogv(a)4ax.com>, > > Lester Zick <dontbother(a)nowhere.net> wrote: > > > >> On Thu, 07 Sep 2006 13:26:12 -0600, Virgil <virgil(a)comcast.net> wrote: > >> > >> >In article <mah0g29jhf7u65h4um3k1jebid22us331o(a)4ax.com>, > >> > Lester Zick <dontbother(a)nowhere.net> wrote: > >> > > >> >> On Wed, 06 Sep 2006 17:13:32 -0600, Virgil <virgil(a)comcast.net> wrote: > >> > > >> >> >Zick is the one whose trivia is founded in the trivium. Math is a part > >> >> >of the quadrivium. > >> >> > >> >> And modern math is founded, whatever that means, in the trivium and > >> >> not in the quadrivium. > >> > > >> >And how does someone so self-decaredly ignorant of mathematics know this? > >> > >> Because you self declaredly proclaim assumptions of truth in lieu of > >> demonstrations. > > > >Zick frequently does this, but why does he deceive himself that > >mathematicians emulate his idiocies? > > Because they don't and probably can't demonstrate their trivial > assumptions of truth. > But, unlike Zick, they are careful to point out just what unproven assumptions they are making. Thus no one need be deceived by them, though one cannot say the same about Zick's claims. |