The worth or futility of factorizations relating to OPNs - Page 6

Christenson · 2011-11-17, 06:25

Science Man, whatever is going on here with Mr Silverman has very little to do with you specifically and your humorous little transcript. It has a lot to do with Mr Silverman's absolutist approach to truth and rigor....and his underlying anger with all of us, and probably the whole world, which seems to drive the absolutism.

Although RDS doesn't seem to see it, truth, even mathematical truth, is a direction. It can be encouraged or discouraged, all by the way in which things are presented. I happen to agree that figuring out M48 is probably meaningless mathematically, unless RDS gets mad and proceeds to find a proof that there are no more, or that there are infinitely more, or that all mersenne primes satisfy some obscure condition on their exponent. But he discourages me when I find out that one of his favorite authors has multiple books on number theory and I ask which would be best to study out of and the PM gets ignored. He discourages when a whole post is called wrong with an epithet when a simple addition (hey! this is the definition of the extended reals) to a post would have made it *really* right, and the post was mostly right in the first place.

Others are discouraged with one-word epithets like "Nonsense!", or "Gibberish", or "Horse Manure!" instead of something like:"On the contrary, suppose X,Y, and Z hold, as they do for WWW?", or "What *exactly* do you mean by the xyzzy set? Does it include zero? infinity? quaternions? polynomials?" or a simple "You aren't making complete sense...the definition of octonion is too imprecise...try X".

And no, I don't expect a community of total math experts here....if you want that, you need to enlist the mods to help keep the math threads that are interesting to experts relatively easily separated from the vast majority, just like sci.math.research attempted to do once upon a time, about 1995, in the days of Ludwig Plutonium and "time has inertia" and MPQS. That's how the new, unrelated posts on the end of the FFT multiplication thread got moved, at least in part because I requested it of the mods, nicely.

If you want to see the difference, look up the last crank that got himself banned that I am aware of....JohnFullspeed...in
http://mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=15999
I'll be honest: it was clear Mr Fullspeed had a mathematical screw loose from the beginning, but I imagine that he is roughly in the same position with respect to me mathematically as I am and will probably remain with respect to Mr Silverman. I tried to gently push him to be clearer and more correct, and LaurV joined me. I may not have succeeded completely, but the practice was worthwhile. The only other way to avoid a negative outcome of that thread was for me to say nothing.

Mr. P-1 · 2011-11-17, 10:46

I realise that this is not a democracy, and my opinions carry little if any weight, but for what they are worth, I greatly value RDS' mathematical contributions to the forum and would be saddened to see him leave. I also see little prospect of getting him to change his ways.

My preference, therefore, is he not be banned and that we continue to tolerate his behaviour, as we have these past several years.

Brian-E · 2011-11-17, 11:40

I'd like to second what Mr. P-1 writes. We are talking about someone who makes enormously valuable contributions to this forum. Beyond that, I find any public discussion of these issues distasteful: it should be conducted in private between the moderators and those directly involved.

xilman · 2011-11-17, 11:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian-E

I'd like to second what Mr. P-1 writes. We are talking about someone who makes enormously valuable contributions to this forum. Beyond that, I find any public discussion of these issues distasteful: it should be conducted in private between the moderators and those directly involved.

Believe it or not, a great deal of this sort of thing is discussed in private. Every now and again it flares up in public.

R.D. Silverman · 2011-11-17, 12:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by xilman

Believe it or not, a great deal of this sort of thing is discussed in private. Every now and again it flares up in public.

Did you ever wonder why

Lenstra/Lenstra/Kleinjung/Montgomery/Pomerance/Crandall/Wagstaff/Williams/Cohen/Buchmann/Odlyzko/Elkies/Coppersmith etc. (all more talented than I)

do not and have never participated here? Some of them used to participate
in sci.math.

I suggest that this group give some serious thought to this question.

davieddy · 2011-11-17, 12:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christenson

If you want to see the difference, look up the last crank that got himself banned that I am aware of....JohnFullspeed...in
http://mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=15999
I'll be honest: it was clear Mr Fullspeed had a mathematical screw loose from the beginning...

I hope you saw Ernst's post in another thread (see below)*

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. P-1

I also see little prospect of getting him to change his ways.
My preference, therefore, is he not be banned and that we continue to tolerate his behaviour, as we have these past several years.

e.g. As in this thread?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian-E

Beyond that, I find any public discussion of these issues distasteful: it should be conducted in private between the moderators and those directly involved.

Well said, but whose fault is that?

Quote:

Originally Posted by xilman

Believe it or not, a great deal of this sort of thing is discussed in private. Every now and again it flares up in public.

A rare occurrence.

David

(*) Ernst dubbed him "John FullRetard more like".
Bob responded "I would get banned if I were to
post anything like that".
I would like to think this was an attempt at humour.

Brian-E · 2011-11-17, 12:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by xilman

Believe it or not, a great deal of this sort of thing is discussed in private. Every now and again it flares up in public.

There's no problem with believing that. I have the greatest respect for you and various others who are never involved in causing it to flare up.

davieddy · 2011-11-17, 12:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

Did you ever wonder why

Lenstra/Lenstra/Kleinjung/Montgomery/Pomerance/Crandall/Wagstaff/Williams/Cohen/Buchmann/Odlyzko/Elkies/Coppersmith etc. (all more talented than I)

do not and have never participated here? Some of them used to participate
in sci.math.

I suggest that this group give some serious thought to this question.

Sorry Bob.
Try Spoonerizing the title

David

davieddy · 2011-11-17, 12:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian-E

There's no problem with believing that. I have the greatest respect for you and various others who are never involved in causing it to flare up.

Paul is made of asbestos, but when it comes to pouring petrol...

David

PS Fawlty Towers clip to follow if I find it

science_man_88 · 2011-11-17, 13:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

Did you ever wonder why

Lenstra/Lenstra/Kleinjung/Montgomery/Pomerance/Crandall/Wagstaff/Williams/Cohen/Buchmann/Odlyzko/Elkies/Coppersmith etc. (all more talented than I)

do not and have never participated here? Some of them used to participate
in sci.math.

I suggest that this group give some serious thought to this question.

my guess is that you think it's because they don't lock up cranks and throw away the key here.

R.D. Silverman · 2011-11-17, 13:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by science_man_88

my guess is that you think it's because they don't lock up cranks and throw away the key here.

It is clear that people here do not care about my opinions.

I was asking what YOU think.

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2011-11-17, 06:25	#56
Christenson Dec 2010 Monticello 5×359 Posts	Science Man, whatever is going on here with Mr Silverman has very little to do with you specifically and your humorous little transcript. It has a lot to do with Mr Silverman's absolutist approach to truth and rigor....and his underlying anger with all of us, and probably the whole world, which seems to drive the absolutism. Although RDS doesn't seem to see it, truth, even mathematical truth, is a direction. It can be encouraged or discouraged, all by the way in which things are presented. I happen to agree that figuring out M48 is probably meaningless mathematically, unless RDS gets mad and proceeds to find a proof that there are no more, or that there are infinitely more, or that all mersenne primes satisfy some obscure condition on their exponent. But he discourages me when I find out that one of his favorite authors has multiple books on number theory and I ask which would be best to study out of and the PM gets ignored. He discourages when a whole post is called wrong with an epithet when a simple addition (hey! this is the definition of the extended reals) to a post would have made it really right, and the post was mostly right in the first place. Others are discouraged with one-word epithets like "Nonsense!", or "Gibberish", or "Horse Manure!" instead of something like:"On the contrary, suppose X,Y, and Z hold, as they do for WWW?", or "What exactly do you mean by the xyzzy set? Does it include zero? infinity? quaternions? polynomials?" or a simple "You aren't making complete sense...the definition of octonion is too imprecise...try X". And no, I don't expect a community of total math experts here....if you want that, you need to enlist the mods to help keep the math threads that are interesting to experts relatively easily separated from the vast majority, just like sci.math.research attempted to do once upon a time, about 1995, in the days of Ludwig Plutonium and "time has inertia" and MPQS. That's how the new, unrelated posts on the end of the FFT multiplication thread got moved, at least in part because I requested it of the mods, nicely. If you want to see the difference, look up the last crank that got himself banned that I am aware of....JohnFullspeed...in http://mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=15999 I'll be honest: it was clear Mr Fullspeed had a mathematical screw loose from the beginning, but I imagine that he is roughly in the same position with respect to me mathematically as I am and will probably remain with respect to Mr Silverman. I tried to gently push him to be clearer and more correct, and LaurV joined me. I may not have succeeded completely, but the practice was worthwhile. The only other way to avoid a negative outcome of that thread was for me to say nothing.

2011-11-17, 10:46	#57
Mr. P-1 Jun 2003 7·167 Posts	I realise that this is not a democracy, and my opinions carry little if any weight, but for what they are worth, I greatly value RDS' mathematical contributions to the forum and would be saddened to see him leave. I also see little prospect of getting him to change his ways. My preference, therefore, is he not be banned and that we continue to tolerate his behaviour, as we have these past several years.

2011-11-17, 11:40	#58
Brian-E "Brian" Jul 2007 The Netherlands 7×467 Posts	I'd like to second what Mr. P-1 writes. We are talking about someone who makes enormously valuable contributions to this forum. Beyond that, I find any public discussion of these issues distasteful: it should be conducted in private between the moderators and those directly involved.