JSH: So what happened?
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From: JSH on 19 Jul 2010 00:20 To people today Gauss is a name, of a person who lived a long time ago, and they're told he did great things. But to his contemporaries he was the one to beat. The best of his times. When he died the push to find something great lead a world astray. With him gone, the mathematicians of his time could go astray. Prime numbers have no preference. To consider all twin primes up to 25, you only need 3, as 3 commands them. 5 mod 3 = 2 so there must be a twin prime. But 7 mod 3 = 1, so there cannot be. Because 9 has 3 as a factor. For 11, you have 11 mod 3 = 2, so you have a twin prime. But 13 mod 3 = 1, so no twin prime. 17 mod 3 = 2, so a twin prime. But 19 mod 3 = 1, so none. And 23 mod 3 = 2, but finally 5 steps up, so no twin prime. Then 3 and 5 command all twin primes until 49. It is trivial. It was always trivial. But if you *believe* that it's not trivial, then you can wrap up the prime distribution itself. The count of primes up to 25 is approximately 25/ln 25 and you can put that into it and make this complicated thing, and say you're doing great things and pretend to be like Gauss. I've asked, why do math research? None of you know why. You don't know why because if you did then you would not believe in wrong things. You would not hold so desperately on false beliefs, false hopes, false dreams. Because out of what is wrong comes not the strength of the human race. What you build upon the lies will not stand. What you do with the praise of people who believe in you wrongly, will not take you far. Your world changes beneath you. As it shifts you hold on desperately as if you can comfort each other with words then you believe you can keep going if only for just one more day, as you remember the previous day and that seemed to work. But this world is about actions and your warnings are nearly done. Few of you have a clue of the world that is coming no more than you knew this one today would be here, and your warnings are about your physical safety but I know for some of you such warnings mean nothing as you are past caring about dying. I have done my best. But you must understand that for many of you this story may end in a very short time, less than a few years in your fellow human beings exacting a steep price upon you. I will try to save you as I can. At least some of you. What you have not understood is that Evolution is about survival. And surviving is about being right. For some of you soon, I will be the only thing keeping you from death. We are nearly there. James Harris
From: rossum on 19 Jul 2010 12:12 On Mon, 19 Jul 2010 02:18:16 -0400, Owen Jacobson <angrybaldguy(a)gmail.com> wrote: >What you have not understood is that Evolution is about survival. Incorrect. Evolution is about reproduction. If you live to 150 and die with no children your genes will not be present in future generations. If you die at 25 but eventually have 8 fertile grandchildren then your genes will be present in future generations. It is about reproduction, not about survival. Survival, at least to adulthood, is a means to an end. It is not the end itself. rossum
From: Joshua Cranmer on 19 Jul 2010 17:47 On 07/19/2010 12:12 PM, rossum wrote: > On Mon, 19 Jul 2010 02:18:16 -0400, Owen Jacobson > <angrybaldguy(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >> What you have not understood is that Evolution is about survival. > Incorrect. Evolution is about reproduction. If you live to 150 and > die with no children your genes will not be present in future > generations. If you die at 25 but eventually have 8 fertile > grandchildren then your genes will be present in future generations. > > It is about reproduction, not about survival. Survival, at least to > adulthood, is a means to an end. It is not the end itself. Well, to a lesser degree, it's also about ensuring the survival of your offspring to their reproductive age. -- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth
From: Joshua Cranmer on 19 Jul 2010 18:31 On 07/19/2010 12:20 AM, JSH wrote: > Prime numbers have no preference. To consider all twin primes up to > 25, you only need 3, as 3 commands them. And I thought your last posts had been quite... airy. This sentence took me three tries at parsing before I could come up with something that actually had any relation to mathematics. > And 23 mod 3 = 2, but finally 5 steps up, so no twin prime. As far as I can tell, this contradicts your previous statement. But the terms you use are just so vacuous in meaning, I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say at all. Would you mind repeating it all in predicate calculus? > I've asked, why do math research? Whee, absolutely no transition whatsoever! In any case, the answer here is quite obvious: either because it's what you like doing, or because it's what you're paid to do. > I have done my best. But you must understand that for many of you > this story may end in a very short time, less than a few years in your > fellow human beings exacting a steep price upon you. Oracles and prophets long ago learned that the key to success is to give only vague phrases with multiple meanings yet still sound definitive (e.g., "A great empire will fall", in other words, "someone will win big"). Alternatively, predicting events in far-off times and far-off lands (and being helpfully vague about the specific whens and wheres) seemed to work well for Nostradamus. Somehow, being wrong in your predictions several times has not dissuaded you from making new ones. -- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth
From: Joshua Cranmer on 19 Jul 2010 22:08
On 07/19/2010 07:42 PM, JSH wrote: > Good question. My take on it is the reason why I give warnings--I'm > afraid of what might happen. > > If it doesn't happen, so what? You lose even more credibility. You paint a picture of yourself as either an extreme egoist or an extreme idiot, or perhaps both. > Imagine an angry mob in a post-apocalyptic world out for blood against > anyone who even LOOKS like a mathematician--whatever that vaguely > means to them. Sigh. This is wrong on so many counts: 1. A catastrophic collapse of civilization is extremely unlikely except by major disasters that take out several billion people at once. A severe nuclear winter is a possibility here, or perhaps Yellowstone going off. The only other thing remotely possible that I am aware of is a massive meteor strike. I don't think climate change would cut it... 2. The notion that a cabal in an alarmingly abstract area of academia could cause such a collapse is laughable. You are way overestimating the amount of influence such people could have. And your fears about parents or students getting upset at being taught lies are rather groundless: how many people actually want to learn and remember higher math? 3. In a post-apocalyptic world--assuming you mean any world where transport outside of somewhat localized regions is rendered difficult to impossible--the primary goal is survival. Going on a witch hunt for mathematicians (which, if you apply the stereotypes, are already old, frail, and knocking on death's door: such an environment would likely spell their death quickly enough) would just be a useless expenditure of energy. -- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth |