Math Forum / Mathematics / Undergraduate Math / February 2008

One of my heroes is Sir Isaac Newton who it turns out was not exactly
a nice guy.  Later in life he had among other things the job of
protecting the currency of Britain, so he could send criminals to be
executed.  He did his job.

Mathematics to me is about absolutes.  So I can reach a point where I
tend to think in absolutes, and after five years of facing a math
society that clearly has lied repeatedly and has behaved as if it
could not be caught, I've lost any interest in concerns about not
acting from absolutes.

Modern mathematicians pushed the idea that proofs could be delicate
things and talked of failed proofs.  They claimed proofs were not
discovered but were creations, and that whether an argument was a
proof or not was about whether mathematicians thought it was a proof
or not.

My take on the field is that it has been overtaken by fiction
writers.  People who see themselves as authors of "proofs" which are
really entertainment for others like them as no one else can even
comprehend this stuff.

So style is the most important thing for math undergrads to learn in
this system.

Style.

I lost count of how many times people told me my mathematical
arguments did not look like math proofs.

But I say proof is discovery, and so it can be like prospecting,
hunting for gold treasure.  Treasure seekers don't worry about the
dressing, they worry about the goods.  After all, they're rooting in
dirt or streams.  It's not a pretty process.

Fiction writers took over the math field and fiction writing is about
conflict, and contradiction, or apparent contradiction can be part of
conflict and good fiction, so math society believes in "logical
contradiction" along with those "delicate proofs" that can be wrong.

But I am a discoverer.  I search for mathematical proofs the way you
go for gold or diamond hunting.  And I don't appreciate a style
society of fiction writers pretending to be mathematicians telling me
my finds are not what I can prove they are.

You people of course have bet your careers on me not being able to
convince anyone else, which I say is, fine.  You want to bet, then
fine, but you need to know that is what you are doing.

I am a no-nonsense person on these issues.

And I have no compunction with presiding over shutting down entire
mathematical departments where I've said that I would definitely put
the Princeton math department at the top of that list of departments
that should just be shutdown.

If I am wrong, then you just have more ranting from someone many of
you are quite willing to call a madman, but if I am right about my
finds then you need to accept what will happen when I get past your
fiction writing society, past all the blocks you've thrown up in what
is increasingly clear is a conspiracy to commit fraud--and inform the
world.

So they know you faked math discoveries for years and to prove you
knew you were faking you blocked acceptance of my research for years
and even kept up the game with the factoring problem which I turned to
because I knew you couldn't successfully block a major research find
in that area.

So you have bet it all.

Fine.

You people ultimately don't understand what mathematics is, or what
mathematical proof is, or you would not have done it.

And that finally is my most potent argument explaining why there is no
choice for the world--real mathematicians could not have failed to
understand when it was over as a mathematical proof said it was over.

Therefore, you are not at all real mathematicians.

I have the theory.  So it's not a question mathematically of whether
or not it will work.  It's just a matter of the implementation that
the theory says must be there actually being presented, and then the
entire sorry tale will be the talk of the entire world.

Mathematicians around the world fakes!!!--the headlines may read.

And you will have lost it all on your bets in what will turn out to be
a much better story than any of you ever wrote in your fake "proofs",
though its grandeur will be a lot about the heaviness of your fall.

James Harris