A Study of Primes Through Non-Resonant Sine Waves - Page 3

Dougal · 2010-04-08, 20:00

bob is actually the reason i dont write all my messages like this.im on his ignore list anyway.

flouran · 2010-04-08, 20:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Had you submitted them to a professional publication, or an amateur one?

Is there such a thing as an amateur publication?
In my opinion, papers, etc that are published in the mathematical community tend to be professional. Amateur papers are either posted online (such as the author's personal website or the arXiv and/or other e-print repositories) or are abandoned altogether. Obviously, the latter cases are just typical examples, but my point is that amateur papers tend not to be published in the sense that they appear in a peer-reviewed journal.

R.D. Silverman · 2010-04-08, 22:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by xilman

Fair enough.

Bob?

Paul

Yes?

cheesehead · 2010-04-08, 23:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by flouran

Is there such a thing as an amateur publication?

Of course! I was editor/publisher of an amateur (non-mathematical) publication for a couple of years in the 1970s.

Quote:

In my opinion, papers, etc that are published in the mathematical community tend to be professional. Amateur papers are either posted online (such as the author's personal website or the arXiv and/or other e-print repositories) or are abandoned altogether.

Fine. EdH's amateur paper is posted online on what appears to be a personal website.
I suspect all of Silverman's papers, or at least the ones he mentions in post #10, have been sent to professional publications, but I'm specifically asking in case some were actually sent to amateur pubs.

Quote:

Obviously, the latter cases are just typical examples, but my point is that amateur papers tend not to be published in the sense that they appear in a peer-reviewed journal.

Fine.

My point is that Silverman is inappropriately applying professional standards to an amateur paper. I suspect that all cases he cited in post #10 as justification for a brusque reply all occurred in a professional, not amateur, context. I explicitly asked whether that was true because my suspicion could be wrong.

fivemack · 2010-04-09, 00:04

I think it's pretty pernicious to hold amateur papers to a standard lower than professional ones; the fact that you're doing it for love rather than for citations doesn't excuse incompetence in any field. If you send an incompetent piece of work to a professional venue you're wasting the time of someone generally not paid for their time, which is obviously incivil and deserves a brusque reply; if you publish it yourself you're wasting the time of your readers, which is equally incivil.

I have never reviewed a paper; I've been asked once, read through the paper which was clearly very competent work extending what I did for my thesis, decided that was no longer sufficiently au-fait with the field that I could recognise non-obvious errors or make useful comments, and refused the offer.

Something claiming to be a paper ought to be a finished piece of work and ought to be written in something close to Standard Mathematical Style; signs that a paper is not in Standard Mathematical Style include having verbatim programs in it, using the word 'basically', and almost any occurrence of 'since it exists'. (for an example, the first couple of pages of EdH's paper reduced to something like Standard Mathematical Style would be:

Let $f_p(x) = sin(\pi x / p)$ . Then an integer $x$ is prime iff $f_p(x)$ is non-zero for all $p < \sqrt x$ ; that is, if $\prod_{q=2,\quad q \mathrm{prime}}^{\sqrt x} f_p(x) \ne 0$ )

If a bit of work for the paper is both fundamental and incomplete, the paper is only a draft, and if you can't complete the step then the paper in that form is worthless.

That's quite strict, but remember that you've got a forum here where you can ask about the individual pieces of work; if you phrase the question as 'can you use the fact that sin(pi*A/B) is zero iff B divides A as a primality test', then you can start a discussion:

Implementations of trig functions almost always explicitly reduce the argument modulo 2*pi to get it into the right range, so the computer is just doing the underlying division; you can write an implementation of sin as a series sum that doesn't do range reduction, and it would be an interesting mathematical exercise (and one where I've no idea where to start) to find some series that converges to within 10^-12 of, say, sin(x) for x around 10^6 by summing o(x) terms each of which is, say, a rational function of x.

But even that would still be vastly slower than the division. Multiplying a number by pi and then using a convoluted method for dividing by pi to check whether the number you started with was an integer is obviously absurd.

EdH · 2010-04-09, 01:00

I'm perfectly fine with R. D. Silverman's brief critique. That is what I wanted to know. I am definitely an amateur. And, knowing how useless the document is will allow me to finally put it to rest, as I had for the past couple years, while I looked into other areas, such as my interest now in sequences, factoring and Linear Algebra.

Had I been concerned about being treated harshly, I would have never posted this paper.

Thank you to xilman (Paul) for not removing the post.

Perhaps now that my level of incompetence is revealed, I will be "looked" at differently from when I was just an unknown, but that is OK, too. I wouldn't want to disappoint someone later.

I actually posted it thinking it wasn't worth too much, since I found nothing else on line that was similar, but wondered if anyone else had "played" along these lines.

Anyway, thank you to all who participated in this thread.

Unless banned for not knowing enough, I'll still be around to annoy some of you from time to time.

The "offending" (draft) paper will not... Please delete any copies...

Take Care,
Ed

Hmm... Even more offending... Although removed from the site, it persists.

Hey, mods, can you delete the links? Thanks, in either case...

retina · 2010-04-09, 01:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by EdH

... Please delete any copies... ... Although removed from the site, it persists.

Hey, mods, can you delete the links? Thanks, in either case...

Once the genie is out of the bottle ...

EdH · 2010-04-09, 02:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by retina

Once the genie is out of the bottle ...

indeed...

S485122 · 2010-04-09, 06:10

I must say that the title of the paper is beautiful ! When one has such a title it is tempting to use it ;-)

Jacob

flouran · 2010-04-09, 06:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Of course! I was editor/publisher of an amateur (non-mathematical) publication for a couple of years in the 1970s.

Could you supply me with more information? I really would be more interested in looking into this!

You can PM me also if you like

R.D. Silverman · 2010-04-09, 12:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by EdH

Perhaps now that my level of incompetence is revealed,
Hmm... Even more offending... Although removed from the site, it persists.

Hey, mods, can you delete the links? Thanks, in either case...

It is NOT "incompetence". It is lack of due diligence and effort. You simply
did not take the time to write a mathematical paper as it SHOULD be written.

May I suggest reading a few published papers to see how they should be
written?

2010-04-09, 00:04	#27
fivemack (loop (#_fork)) Feb 2006 Cambridge, England 7²·131 Posts	I think it's pretty pernicious to hold amateur papers to a standard lower than professional ones; the fact that you're doing it for love rather than for citations doesn't excuse incompetence in any field. If you send an incompetent piece of work to a professional venue you're wasting the time of someone generally not paid for their time, which is obviously incivil and deserves a brusque reply; if you publish it yourself you're wasting the time of your readers, which is equally incivil. I have never reviewed a paper; I've been asked once, read through the paper which was clearly very competent work extending what I did for my thesis, decided that was no longer sufficiently au-fait with the field that I could recognise non-obvious errors or make useful comments, and refused the offer. Something claiming to be a paper ought to be a finished piece of work and ought to be written in something close to Standard Mathematical Style; signs that a paper is not in Standard Mathematical Style include having verbatim programs in it, using the word 'basically', and almost any occurrence of 'since it exists'. (for an example, the first couple of pages of EdH's paper reduced to something like Standard Mathematical Style would be: Let $f_p(x) = sin(\pi x / p)$ . Then an integer $x$ is prime iff $f_p(x)$ is non-zero for all $p < \sqrt x$ ; that is, if $\prod_{q=2,\quad q \mathrm{prime}}^{\sqrt x} f_p(x) \ne 0$ ) If a bit of work for the paper is both fundamental and incomplete, the paper is only a draft, and if you can't complete the step then the paper in that form is worthless. That's quite strict, but remember that you've got a forum here where you can ask about the individual pieces of work; if you phrase the question as 'can you use the fact that sin(piA/B) is zero iff B divides A as a primality test', then you can start a discussion: Implementations of trig functions almost always explicitly reduce the argument modulo 2pi to get it into the right range, so the computer is just doing the underlying division; you can write an implementation of sin as a series sum that doesn't do range reduction, and it would be an interesting mathematical exercise (and one where I've no idea where to start) to find some series that converges to within 10^-12 of, say, sin(x) for x around 10^6 by summing o(x) terms each of which is, say, a rational function of x. But even that would still be vastly slower than the division. Multiplying a number by pi and then using a convoluted method for dividing by pi to check whether the number you started with was an integer is obviously absurd. Last fiddled with by fivemack on 2010-04-09 at 00:07

2010-04-09, 01:00	#28
EdH "Ed Hall" Dec 2009 Adirondack Mtns 111011101001₂ Posts	I'm perfectly fine with R. D. Silverman's brief critique. That is what I wanted to know. I am definitely an amateur. And, knowing how useless the document is will allow me to finally put it to rest, as I had for the past couple years, while I looked into other areas, such as my interest now in sequences, factoring and Linear Algebra. Had I been concerned about being treated harshly, I would have never posted this paper. Thank you to xilman (Paul) for not removing the post. Perhaps now that my level of incompetence is revealed, I will be "looked" at differently from when I was just an unknown, but that is OK, too. I wouldn't want to disappoint someone later. I actually posted it thinking it wasn't worth too much, since I found nothing else on line that was similar, but wondered if anyone else had "played" along these lines. Anyway, thank you to all who participated in this thread. Unless banned for not knowing enough, I'll still be around to annoy some of you from time to time. The "offending" (draft) paper will not... Please delete any copies... Take Care, Ed Hmm... Even more offending... Although removed from the site, it persists. Hey, mods, can you delete the links? Thanks, in either case... Last fiddled with by EdH on 2010-04-09 at 01:14

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2010-04-08, 20:00	#23
Dougal Jan 2009 Ireland 2×3×31 Posts	bob is actually the reason i dont write all my messages like this.im on his ignore list anyway.

2010-04-09, 06:10	#31
S485122 Sep 2006 Brussels, Belgium 2×3×281 Posts	I must say that the title of the paper is beautiful ! When one has such a title it is tempting to use it ;-) Jacob