Science, math and fashion
Steve Leibel
"James Harris" <jst...@msn.com> wrote:
> Many of you probably already realize that the result should be interesting
> in its own right, it's definitely in a very big area
One thing I do appreciate about your posts is that you generally use its
and it's correctly. I wish others would too.
> The results, however, of my experiment has been that without alpha
> sponsorship, the mathematical truth was attacked or primarily *ignored*.
>
Well we betas do whatever we're told by the alphas. We were all
instructed to call you a crank.
> What that means for those of you who post is that if you do NOT have what I
> call alpha sponsorship, your work will probably languish.
>
Even if everything you say about academic politics is correct, your math
is still wrong, as dozens of people have pointed out over the years.
> What's telling is that my work is *still* languishing, despite the
> interesting questions raised, and might never get the attention it deserves
> if not for my intensive efforts.
>
Yes, but your work is not languishing because of academic politics, it's
languishing because it's incorrect. Strange that you pretend to not see
that.
>
> It's kind of like common notions in fashion, like you're not supposed to
> wear white in America after Labor Day.
>
Bring back the miniskirt!!
> That opens up other possibilities, like authority figures assigning "truth"
> to things that are NOT true.
>
In your case, "false" has been assigned to work that is false.
> That is, before there were human beings, the survival of a group often
> depended on how well it followed its leadership,
What, now you are an expert on prehistoric sociology of non humans?
Incredible, how do you do it?
>
> That is, our brains are wired for fashion.
>
Dude, you are a candidate for the rubber room. The notion that you
actually believe anything you say is mind boggling.
David Kastrup
>
> > That is, before there were human beings, the survival of a group
> > often depended on how well it followed its leadership,
>
> What, now you are an expert on prehistoric sociology of non humans?
> Incredible, how do you do it?
Overgeneralization, as usual. He judges this from the state of before
when he feels like a human being. The sample size is sufficient, but
unfortunately only on a single specimen with hangover.
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
Email: David....@t-online.de
Hop
Steve Leibel wrote:
> In article <#CayLvNOCHA.1840@cpimsnntpa03>,
> "James Harris" <jst...@msn.com> wrote:
>
> > Many of you probably already realize that the result should be interesting
> > in its own right, it's definitely in a very big area
>
> One thing I do appreciate about your posts is that you generally use its
> and it's correctly. I wish others would too.
>
>
Don't both possessive s and contractions get an apostrophe?
I am hoping future participants in this thread will stick in JSH so the message
filters will work.
David Kastrup
> Steve Leibel wrote:
>
> > In article <#CayLvNOCHA.1840@cpimsnntpa03>,
> > "James Harris" <jst...@msn.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Many of you probably already realize that the result should be
> > > interesting in its own right, it's definitely in a very big area
> >
> > One thing I do appreciate about your posts is that you generally use its
> > and it's correctly. I wish others would too.
> >
> >
>
> Don't both possessive s and contractions get an apostrophe?
No. Neither in American nor in British English does any possessive
pronoun get an apostrophe.
Steve Leibel
Hop <hops...@tabletoptelephone.com> wrote:
> Steve Leibel wrote:
>
> > In article <#CayLvNOCHA.1840@cpimsnntpa03>,
> > "James Harris" <jst...@msn.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Many of you probably already realize that the result should be
> > > interesting
> > > in its own right, it's definitely in a very big area
> >
> > One thing I do appreciate about your posts is that you generally use its
> > and it's correctly. I wish others would too.
> >
> >
>
> Don't both possessive s and contractions get an apostrophe?
>
NO NO NO NO NO. The possessive does not get an apostrophe. "it's" is a
contraction of "it is." Period. If substituting "it is" would not make
sense, then you should be using "its."
Phil Carmody
> Hop <hops...@tabletoptelephone.com> writes:
> > Steve Leibel wrote:
> > > In article <#CayLvNOCHA.1840@cpimsnntpa03>,
> > > "James Harris" <jst...@msn.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Many of you probably already realize that the result should be
> > > > interesting in its own right, it's definitely in a very big area
> > >
> > > One thing I do appreciate about your posts is that you generally use its
> > > and it's correctly. I wish others would too.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Don't both possessive s and contractions get an apostrophe?
>
> No. Neither in American nor in British English does any possessive
> pronoun get an apostrophe.
I can't explain exactly why it happened, and I think it's a shame that
it did, but "one's" does seem to have crept into English. A posessive
pronoun with an apostrophe. Yuk!
I believe that includes American English, as the aposrtophisation of
ones seems to have first appeared several hundred years ago. I've never
encountered any American literature that uses the word, so I can't be
100%.
To answer the original questioner, it's contractions. However,
historically the genetive in English used to have more letters, and they
have been apostrophised. The item of John would have been Johnes item,
which became contracted to John's item.
Follow-ups really should be set to alt.usage.english (they have a very
good FAQ, BTW)
Phil
Victor Eijkhout
> Don't both possessive s and contractions get an apostrophe?
To quote an expert: "No! Wrong! Totally wrong! Where'd you learn this?
Stop doing it!"
http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif
V.
Nico Benschop
Well, well; don't get all excited over trivia:
who wouldn't *expect* inconsistences in such
a cripple language as English ?-) -- NB
David C. Ullrich
<thefatphil_d...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>David Kastrup wrote:
>> Hop <hops...@tabletoptelephone.com> writes:
>> > Steve Leibel wrote:
>> > > In article <#CayLvNOCHA.1840@cpimsnntpa03>,
>> > > "James Harris" <jst...@msn.com> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > Many of you probably already realize that the result should be
>> > > > interesting in its own right, it's definitely in a very big area
>> > >
>> > > One thing I do appreciate about your posts is that you generally use its
>> > > and it's correctly. I wish others would too.
>> > >
>> > >
>> >
>> > Don't both possessive s and contractions get an apostrophe?
>>
>> No. Neither in American nor in British English does any possessive
>> pronoun get an apostrophe.
>
>I can't explain exactly why it happened, and I think it's a shame that
>it did, but "one's" does seem to have crept into English. A posessive
>pronoun with an apostrophe. Yuk!
Not that it matters, but I don't think that the "one" here is really
a pronoun. Although I could well be wrong, it certainly seems
pronounish.
>I believe that includes American English, as the aposrtophisation of
>ones seems to have first appeared several hundred years ago. I've never
>encountered any American literature that uses the word, so I can't be
>100%.
If one is going to post on usenet one should first get one's facts
straight.
If I spell that "ones" it looks totally wrong to me - I don't see
why you feel it's yucky.
>To answer the original questioner, it's contractions. However,
>historically the genetive in English used to have more letters, and they
>have been apostrophised. The item of John would have been Johnes item,
>which became contracted to John's item.
>
>Follow-ups really should be set to alt.usage.english (they have a very
>good FAQ, BTW)
>
>Phil
David C. Ullrich
Tris
news:#CayLvNOCHA.1840@cpimsnntpa03...
> There has long been a sense of fashion in the sciences as certain ideas or
> theories are called fashionable, but there has also been the insistence
that
> truth, as best we can determine it, rules the roost.
>
> What I've done is test that idea in an experiment that is kind of mind
> boggling in retrospect because of what it depended on.
It certainly seems to have boggled _your_ mind. Is it wise to experiment on
oneself?
<snip>
> The results, however, of my experiment has been that without alpha
> sponsorship, the mathematical truth was attacked or primarily *ignored*.
For the most part, it wasn't attacked so much as constructively criticised.
You are hardly ignored.
You don't have a mathematical truth. You have what you claim is a proof for
FLT, and this claim has been demonstrated to be worth less than the medium
it's printed on. You also have a prime counting algorithm that appears to
be based on Legendre's Method. Your algorithm happens to spit out the wrong
answers relatively slowly.
> Therefore, the conclusion of one of the grander experiments in human
history
Ha ha there you go again.
> is that scientists and mathematicians see mathematical truth the same way
> most people see fashion, which may actually be a matter of the wiring of
the
> human brain.
Quick, post it to the biology and psychology newsgroups and say you've
developed a grand new way of thinking about the human brain!
> What that means for those of you who post is that if you do NOT have what
I
> call alpha sponsorship, your work will probably languish.
Another "You will all pay the price for not treating me with the respect I
deserve."
> What's telling is that my work is *still* languishing, despite the
> interesting questions raised, and might never get the attention it
deserves
> if not for my intensive efforts.
>
> Folks, the stunning conclusion again, is that scientific and mathematical
> truth is about *fashion*, and not so much about what has been proven.
> Picking a mathematical result allowed me to eliminate questions of truth
> since mathematics is about absolute truths.
You appear to pick and choose the "truth" as you see it, and elevate the
results to unrealistic heights. It's hardly surprising that people who are
right set the fashion, rather than those like you who are wrong.
<snip>
Phil Carmody
What letter has been removed from what morpheme in order to form the
morpheme "one's"?
A bit more background at:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=3B1E0438.914B6B3B%40altavista.com
I'm happy sticking with a minority view. I'm also happy being an
Englishman that thinks that most of Noah's changes were an improvement
to English spelling - which puts me in a _tiny_ minority (but in
agreement with most Americans obviously).
Phil
David C. Ullrich
<thefatphil_d...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
Well let us know when the revolution comes.
>Phil
David C. Ullrich
George Johnson
news:x5sn1zt...@tupik.goethe.zz...
I have polled one person (myself) and my opinion is James Harris needs
to stop the babble and show the math. So therefore 100% of the people I
polled on the question "Does James Harris need to stop making promises that
his butt cannot deliver?", say, "Yes. James Harris needs to show his math
and knock off the babble. And we don't want to see the promises his butt
can deliver."
And it sure would help if James Harris could learn to entertain himself
by the merit of his work in place of taunting strangers to get negative
attention. The big problem with taunting strangers is that is always leaves
a person feeling empty inside because there is no worthwhile emotional
reward and no pleasurable experience that can be recalled by both parties
later.
On the other hand... James Harris (being a poorly-educated troll at
heart) provides a humorous distraction akin to some nutty fool on the
streetcorner selling Pet Rocks as "The Freedom Fighters Against Concrete".
We may pick up a rock to amuse ourselves and see if there is any more depth
to the madness of the lunatic vendor, but we never buy such a thing as rocks
with glued on googly eyes are cheap as dirt. Sure James Harris is as useful
as a masochist with a "Spank Me" sign to rid ourselves of negative
aggressive emotions on something willing to accept them happily, but in the
end we are not really sadists by nature and would never agree to such
prolonged delusional role-playing.
George Johnson
news:3D48700E...@yahoo.co.uk...
Feh, language is what we make of it. Everything was a "spell it as you
think it should be spelled" concept until Webster came along and introduced
the dictionary.
Language is an ever-evolving medium for transmitting ideas across the
ages while retaining the intent of the writer.
I see a nasty trend of the "Wite, Nite, Lite, Rite, Quik, Tite,
Brite..." shortenings (Which makes stores like Rite-Aid all the more
interesting if you examine their name as "Ritual Help") which dilute
standard spelling for "Knock Off" shortened variations for product branding.
At this rate we'll be using "Eite (Eight or Eate), Blight (Blite), Height
(Hite), Slite (Slight), Weite (Weight or perhaps Wate), Fright (Frite),
Knight (Knite), Fite (Fight), Plite (Plight), Freight (Frite or perhaps
Frait), etc..." in the next ten years.
God help the poor variations of "Sight (Site) and Might (Mite)" who
already have valid words in place which mean quite different things.
The written language is a shared collaboration with only a new trend
required to reformalize it over the stability of the status quo. For
example people could up and decide to quit using the "Q + U" standard and
just go with plain "Q" for their "Qu" words. Then were would it "Qit" in
"Qite" a "Qizzilcal" "Qandry" of "Qaking" revised grammar rules? The "Qu"
to "Q" trend is a whole avalance just waiting to happen. And yes I know I
should have spelled "Qandry" as "Qandary" but the "make it simple" rule
pretty much demanded the second "a" drop.
Franz Heymann
You start more threads than is warranted ny your intellect.
Franz Heymann
Phil Carmody
> | > No. Neither in American nor in British English does any possessive
> | > pronoun get an apostrophe.
> |
> | I can't explain exactly why it happened, and I think it's a shame that
> | it did, but "one's" does seem to have crept into English. A posessive
> | pronoun with an apostrophe. Yuk!
> |
> | I believe that includes American English, as the aposrtophisation of
> | ones seems to have first appeared several hundred years ago. I've never
> | encountered any American literature that uses the word, so I can't be
> | 100%.
> |
> | To answer the original questioner, it's contractions. However,
> | historically the genetive in English used to have more letters, and they
> | have been apostrophised. The item of John would have been Johnes item,
> | which became contracted to John's item.
> |
> | Follow-ups really should be set to alt.usage.english (they have a very
> | good FAQ, BTW)
> |
> | Phil
>
> Feh, language is what we make of it. Everything was a "spell it as you
> think it should be spelled" concept until Webster came along and introduced
> the dictionary.
Your namesake predated Webster by several (3?) decades. He was a
simplifier and a standardiser too.
You can blame the greatest misspeller in the English language's history
- William Shakespeare - for many of the non-standard spellings. The
author who consistently misspelt his own name.
> Language is an ever-evolving medium for transmitting ideas across the
> ages while retaining the intent of the writer.
Indeed. And linguists should be descriptive, not prescriptive or
proscriptive.
I'm particularly aware of this as I live in a country where until the
late 1900s only a minority spoke my native tongue, and for those that
did speak it, it was likely to be their third language. I've always
worked on the principle that the important part of communication was
whether the payload was delivered, and the details of the actual words
used or misused is an almost irrelevant issue. However, the easiest way
to ensure you're understood is to be understandable, and that means
using language that others are comfortable and familiar with. And in
part that implies following rules.
> I see a nasty trend of the "Wite, Nite, Lite, Rite, Quik, Tite,
> Brite..." shortenings (Which makes stores like Rite-Aid all the more
> interesting if you examine their name as "Ritual Help") which dilute
> standard spelling for "Knock Off" shortened variations for product branding.
> At this rate we'll be using "Eite (Eight or Eate), Blight (Blite), Height
> (Hite), Slite (Slight), Weite (Weight or perhaps Wate), Fright (Frite),
> Knight (Knite), Fite (Fight), Plite (Plight), Freight (Frite or perhaps
> Frait), etc..." in the next ten years.
However, you mustn't forget that some of those modern forms were the
product of one branch of the IE tree (Italic) munging words formed by
speakers of another branch of the IE tree (Germanic). In very naive
terms, either letters were added or pronounciation was removed, such
that the words ended up with more letters than sounds. Noah began the
rewinding of those changes, but he didn't do them all. (Sure, I admit he
may have back-formed too, in order to keep to the pattern.)
> God help the poor variations of "Sight (Site) and Might (Mite)" who
> already have valid words in place which mean quite different things.
>
> The written language is a shared collaboration with only a new trend
> required to reformalize it over the stability of the status quo. For
> example people could up and decide to quit using the "Q + U" standard and
> just go with plain "Q" for their "Qu" words. Then were would it "Qit" in
> "Qite" a "Qizzilcal" "Qandry" of "Qaking" revised grammar rules? The "Qu"
> to "Q" trend is a whole avalance just waiting to happen. And yes I know I
> should have spelled "Qandry" as "Qandary" but the "make it simple" rule
> pretty much demanded the second "a" drop.
And don't forget the "lets return to North Germanic" 'Kw' twists! (e.g.
English 'Quick' akin to Danish 'Kwik', Icelandic 'Kwikr' (which has the
'quick' meaning found in 'the quick and the dead').
It's a shame this is so off topic, I'm enjoying this thread!
Phil
Paul Sperry
He starts yet another thread with one of his better efforts at being
obnoxious and goofy and what does he get? A long, more interesting and
saner thread on English grammar.
--
Paul Sperry
Columbia, SC (USA)
Asger Grunnet
Phil Carmody wrote:
> And don't forget the "lets return to North Germanic" 'Kw' twists! (e.g.
> English 'Quick' akin to Danish 'Kwik', Icelandic 'Kwikr' (which has the
> 'quick' meaning found in 'the quick and the dead').
<nitpicking>
It's "Kvik", actually. The "w" is almost never used in danish.
Oh, and shouldn't that be "let's return..."? ;-)
</nitpicking>
Asger.
James Harris
"Paul Sperry" <plsp...@sc.rr.com> wrote in message
news:plsperry-61BEE2...@news-server.sc.rr.com...
I think it's funny. After all, you people suck at discovering mathematics,
the least you can do is be a little better at English grammar.
Actually, I DO think it's rather cool.
Weirdly enough. I'm kind of satisfied at where this thread went.
___JSH
Porky Pig Jr
but in the
> end we are not really sadists by nature
the fact that so many people are willing to respond to JSH's postings
proves that we are at least sado-masochists by nature.
Phil Carmody
Nits are there to be picked.
I know I typod in my post, as the Icelandic (and old norse) is 'v'
rather than 'w'. Danish has little reason to have a 'w', so I believe my
etymological dictionary may have typod, or misattributed (the language)
- I did copy it verbatim.
As for "let's" - top marks - what a typo, given the start of this
sub-thread!
I shall retire forthwith.
(for the night, that is)
Phil
Iain Davidson
The apostrophe is probably due to a misconception of the
origin of the genitive in the 17th century.
They thought "Johns book" actually derived from "John his book"
In fact, they thought there were missing letters everywhere.
"He has" was written "he ha's" short for "he haves" and so on.
David Kastrup
> Asger Grunnet wrote:
> >
> > Phil Carmody wrote:
> > > And don't forget the "lets return to North Germanic" 'Kw' twists! (e.g.
> > > English 'Quick' akin to Danish 'Kwik', Icelandic 'Kwikr' (which has the
> > > 'quick' meaning found in 'the quick and the dead').
> >
> > <nitpicking>
> > It's "Kvik", actually. The "w" is almost never used in danish.
> > Oh, and shouldn't that be "let's return..."? ;-)
> > </nitpicking>
>
> Nits are there to be picked.
>
> I know I typod in my post, as the Icelandic (and old norse) is 'v'
> rather than 'w'.
If you want to pick nits: old Norse was written in runes, with neither
'v' nor 'w'. However, one rune is commonly transliterated as 'v'.
Thinkit
"James Harris" <jst...@msn.com> wrote in message
news:#CayLvNOCHA.1840@cpimsnntpa03...
> There has long been a sense of fashion in the sciences as certain ideas or
> theories are called fashionable, but there has also been the insistence
that
> truth, as best we can determine it, rules the roost.
>
> What I've done is test that idea in an experiment that is kind of mind
> boggling in retrospect because of what it depended on.
>
I
> decided, that it be a mathematical one, and also it required that I have a
> forum where I could show that truth and see how it was received.
>
> Based on idealistic notions, the mathematical truth--provably a perfect
> truth--would gain wide acceptance independent of how it was introduced, if
> truth were seen as *intrinsically* valuable.
>
> If instead truth were more about fashion, that is, if people saw truth as
> being what authorities or "alphas" call truth, then if the truth were not
> sponsored by an alpha it would languish.
>
> Notice, if the truth had been taken immediately that would not have
> necessarily proven the ideal, but it NOT being given its due DOES prove
the
> negative, which is extremely important.
>
> Many of you are posters who have various ideas, including those labeled
> "crank" ideas. Others of you are more established and have ideas, which
> follow from extensive work using accepted techniques presented in an
> accepted format, which you post about.
>
> My experiment can tell you all about how works are accepted on the
> newsgroups, and I think we can extend to scientific and mathematical work
in
> general.
>
> Now back to the one thing that made this experiment extraordinarily
> difficult:
>
> I had to get a mathematical truth, and it had to be big enough that no one
> could claim it was lack of importance that kept it from being accepted,
plus
> I needed it widely looked at and talked about.
>
> My choice for reasons I won't go into now was Fermat's Last Theorem.
>
> However, Providence saw fit to provide me with another mathematical truth,
> which is what I've called my prime counting function.
>
> Many of you probably already realize that the result should be interesting
of
> famous, it's simple enough for wide understanding, and it's definitely
been
> talked about on these newsgroups.
>
> The results, however, of my experiment has been that without alpha
> sponsorship, the mathematical truth was attacked or primarily *ignored*.
>
history
> most people see fashion, which may actually be a matter of the wiring of
the
> human brain.
>
I
> call alpha sponsorship, your work will probably languish.
>
> interesting questions raised, and might never get the attention it
deserves
> if not for my intensive efforts.
>
> Folks, the stunning conclusion again, is that scientific and mathematical
> truth is about *fashion*, and not so much about what has been proven.
> Picking a mathematical result allowed me to eliminate questions of truth
> since mathematics is about absolute truths.
>
> wear white in America after Labor Day.
>
>
> Who cares, the people in the know decided that, so that's the fashion.
>
> So, apparently, for even scientists and mathematicians, the people in the
> know decide something, so that's the fashion.
>
> That opens up other possibilities, like authority figures assigning
"truth"
> to things that are NOT true.
>
> fashion, and only about proven truths, though I know some probably would
> debate whether or not there is such a thing as truth, so I guess I might
be
> someone you'd call a Platonist, who believes that the truth matters and
not
> the source.
>
> But apparently, most of you see the *source* as most important and not the
> information, which actually makes evolutionary sense.
>
> That is, before there were human beings, the survival of a group often
> "truth", which kept group cohesion, and group cohesion was important for
> survival. That is, truth was mostly relative, while the few absolute
> truths, like if you fell off the top of a very tall tree on your head,
you'd
> probably die, were hardly hidden.
>
> So our ancestors found ambiguity with *relative* or social truths to be
more
> important than truths with intrinsic value, like don't let someone hit you
> in the head with a big rock, if you can help it, so my guess--getting away
> from the hard conclusions in my little experiment--is that we're wired to
> worry more about social truths.
>
> That is, our brains are wired for fashion.
>
>
James, I've thought these things for years (you might want to check some of
my posts). I've argued that ideas should not be connected to their
"discoverers", and we should not be calling things, for example, "Fermat's
last theorem". Who is this Fermat and what makes erm so special? You have
the right line going here...keep at it.
Sigvaldi Eggertsson
When the Sagas and the rest of the Icelandic (not "old norse" as we
are picking nits here) literature was written, they used letters, not
runes.
Rupert
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really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really,
really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really,
really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really,
really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really,
really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really,
really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really,
really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really,
really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really,
really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really,
really, really, really, really, really, really, REALLY, stupid.
No, I mean really,
No, REALLY.