JSH: But it just amazes me
in [Cryptography]
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From: Gordon Burditt on 9 Nov 2009 02:29 >> >> > For major researchers, oh, minutes, maybe a few hours to program it >> >> > and watch it go, and then there should be calls to colleagues and >> >> > excited discussion, and oh yeah, notifying of security experts and >> >> > intelligence services around the world. >> >> Isn't that the responsibility of the person claiming to make the >> discovery? > >No. I think academics may think that but most people believe that if >you see something really important then YOU have a duty to inform if >you are an expert in that field, while I see this weird attitude from What makes you think that by posting to sci.crypt, you are reaching experts in mathematics? Or even people who *know* experts in mathematics enough to even pick up the phone and talk to them about math? >academics that it is the duty of someone else to convince you. If you're accusing me of being an academic, you're very, very wrong. If I am an expert on something, I'm going to have to be convinced that a supposed new discovery is real before making a fool of myself in front of other experts by passing it on. >But if you are an expert and get shown a simple way to find quadratic >residues modulo N the simple HUMAN CURIOSITY should move you, if there >is any way it is correct as that is a novel thing. >Like say the discussion was over birdwatching, and I noted a beautiful >rare bird, and you ranted back at me that I needed photos in >triplicate, with a paper, and signed affidavits from several other >people who saw the bird, oh, and I needed to get published and only >THEN might you, a supposed bird watching pro, even care to CONSIDER >that MAYBE I might have something interesting. Considering that the last 5 times you claimed you spotted a pterodactyl, it turned out to be (1) a chicken sandwich, (2) the Windows logo, (3) the shadow of your hand, (4) the sun, and (5) a stuffed toy on a TV screen that looks like the Linux penguin, I'm not going to take you seriously the next time you claim to have spotted a pterodactyl, or, for that matter, a bird. And I'm not going to believe an 8-month-old bird spotter can reliably identify birds either, especially not after they mis-identify several of them in a row. If any known competent birdwatcher claims to have spotted a bird long believed to be extinct, like a pterodactyl, I'm still going to ask for photographs. >People won't buy that, and they won't buy that experts couldn't see a >simple and important mathematical result from an amateur, and claims But it's not just from an amateur, it's from a mathematical infant. >that I should fight this huge fight by writing papers and trying to >convince journals is just academic insanity and more reason to reform >the current system. > >After all, what did people do before journals and papers? Or do you >labor under the assumption these always existed? Hopefully they did not waste time reading papers from infants claiming mathematical knowledge written in their diapers. And if a supposed expert sent me bullshit to read the last 10 times, I'm not going to be in any hurry to read his next message. There are other people who might actually know some math who are more worth my time.
From: Mark Murray on 9 Nov 2009 04:27 Gordon Burditt wrote: >> After all, what did people do before journals and papers? Or do you >> labor under the assumption these always existed? > > Hopefully they did not waste time reading papers from infants claiming > mathematical knowledge written in their diapers. And if a supposed expert > sent me bullshit to read the last 10 times, I'm not going to be in any > hurry to read his next message. There are other people who might actually > know some math who are more worth my time. In they days before journals people self-published. Newton published his Pricipia, to critical acclaim. Much Alchemy was dicarded along the way as unrepeatable rubbish. Refereed journals evolved later (I know not when, but suspect the late 1800's/early 1900's) as a measure to separate rubbish from the good stuff. As this is all done be humans, they don't always get it right, but with many eyes on the problem, an evolution to correctness can be achieved. M -- Mark Murray
From: David Malone on 9 Nov 2009 05:00 Mark Murray <w.h.oami(a)example.com> writes: >Newton published his Pricipia, to critical acclaim. Much Alchemy was >dicarded along the way as unrepeatable rubbish. Refereed journals >evolved later (I know not when, but suspect the late 1800's/early >1900's) as a measure to separate rubbish from the good stuff. According to Wikipedia, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society started in 1665 and included papers by Newton. It says it is the second oldest (European) journal after Journal des scavans, which started in the same year. I would guess the review process has changed quite a bit over the years though. David.
From: Noob on 9 Nov 2009 05:01 JSH wrote: > You're pretenders. Wannabe's. Fakes. Nasty hobbitses?
From: Gordon Burditt on 9 Nov 2009 15:20
>> Hopefully they did not waste time reading papers from infants claiming >> mathematical knowledge written in their diapers. And if a supposed expert >> sent me bullshit to read the last 10 times, I'm not going to be in any >> hurry to read his next message. There are other people who might actually >> know some math who are more worth my time. > >In they days before journals people self-published. And when people self-published, they took the effort to *CHECK* their work before publishing, so other people in the field would bother to read it. JSH, do you regularly read the math papers created by the local kindergarten class, just in case they might have a proof for Fermat's Last Theorem in there? Or do you figure that this stuff is not worth reading and skip it? How about reading the stains on newspapers at the bottom of bird cages, in case the bird is a mathematical genius? >Newton published his Pricipia, to critical acclaim. I doubt he would have gotten people to read it if he had published 43 different error-ridden versions of it in the previous year, and he finally got it right. If you want people to take your work seriously, *CHECK IT FIRST*. Don't publish garbage. >Much Alchemy was >dicarded along the way as unrepeatable rubbish. Carelessly-written stuff by an author with a history of lots of math mistakes will also be discarded as rubbish, whether there's a little truth behind it or not. CHECK YOUR WORK before publishing. >Refereed journals >evolved later (I know not when, but suspect the late 1800's/early >1900's) as a measure to separate rubbish from the good stuff. Elementary math mistakes are a sign that something is rubbish. That's your stuff, JSH. If you finally get it right, why are you surprised that nobody takes it seriously? >As this is all done be humans, they don't always get it right, >but with many eyes on the problem, an evolution to correctness >can be achieved. |