JSH published electronically
mjc
The journal says that two referees must approve each article.
======================================================================
Print - Close Window
Date: Wed, 5 May 2004 05:31:17 -0500 (CDT)
From: s...@rattler.cameron.edu
To: swj...@rattler.cameron.edu
Subject: [Swjpam] Issue #2, December 2003
Issue #2, December 2003 is available at
http://rattler.cameron.edu/swjpam/vol2-03.html
Topics include:
1. t-distance in a General Topological Space (X, t) with Applications to
Fixed Point Theory by M. Aamri and D. El Moutawakil
2. Advanced Polynomial Factorization by James Harris
3. A Solution to an "Unsolved Problem in Number Theory" by Allan J.
MacLeod
4. Fixed Points for Near-Contractive Type Multivalued Mappings by
Abderrahim Mbarki
5. Non-autonomous Inhomogeneous Boundary Cauchy Problems and Retarded
Equations by M. Filali and M. Moussi
6. Smoothers and their applications in autonomous system theory by J. E.
Palomar Tarancon
7. Approximation of Fixed Points of Asymptotically Pseudocontractive
Mappings in Banach Spaces by Yeol Je Cho, Daya Ram Sahu, Jong Soo Jung
8. Radial Minimizer of a p-Ginzburg-Landau Type Functional with Normal
Impurity Inclusion by Yutian Lei
9. On the Large Proper Sublattices of Finite Lattices by Zhang Kunlun,
Song Lixia and Sun Yikang
10. A Class Of Ruscheweyh - Type Harmonic Univalent Functions with Varying
Arguments by G.Murugusundaramoorthy
11. Multiple Radial Symmetric Solutions for Nonlinear Boundary Value
Problems of p-Laplacian by Qian Zhou and Yuanyuan Ke
12. Classes of Ruscheweyh-Type Analytic Univalent Functions by Saeid
Shams, S. R. Kulkarni and Jay M. Jahangiri
_______________________________________________
Swjpam mailing list
Swj...@rattler.cameron.edu
http://rattler.cameron.edu/mailman/listinfo/swjpam
Jesse F. Hughes
to the detriment of the journals' reputations. But somehow I never
thought that JSH would actually do so. Who knew?
The article preprint is three pages long. The journal is evidently
associated with Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma, but I really
don't remember anything about that school despite being raised in OK.
I've appended an excerpt regarding the aims of SWJPAM, which mentions
the referee requirement described by mjc. I reckon that small
journals like this are easily duped into publishing crank articles,
but they provide a useful service for basic mathematical research and
education without the competitive stress of the more prestigious
press.
,----
| Scope. SWJPAM is an electronic journal devoted to all aspects of
| Pure and Applied mathematics, and related topics. Authoritative
| expository and survey articles on subjects of special interest are
| also welcomed. SWJPAM serves as an international forum for the
| publication of high-quality strictly peer-reviewed original research
| articles. The article is usually send to at least two experts in the
| area.Two positive reviews are required for the acceptance and
| publication of any submitted article.
|
| Since SWJPAM aims to serve not only the specialists, but also the
| user of mathematics (promoting, in such a way, a strong interaction
| between them), particular emphasis is placed on applications. Thus,
| SWJPAM publishes papers which, although not directly contributing to
| mathematics, contain, however, significant results (from any field)
| obtained by making an essential and well stressed use of the methods
| and results of mathematics.
`----
--
"All intelligent men are cowards. The Chinese are the world's worst
fighters because they are an intelligent race[...] An average Chinese
child knows what the European gray-haired statesmen do not know, that
by fighting one gets killed or maimed." -- Lin Yutang
confused
> Wow. I know that many cranks get an article published here and there,
> to the detriment of the journals' reputations. But somehow I never
> thought that JSH would actually do so. Who knew?
>
> The article preprint is three pages long. The journal is evidently
> associated with Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma, but I really
> don't remember anything about that school despite being raised in OK.
>
> I've appended an excerpt regarding the aims of SWJPAM, which mentions
> the referee requirement described by mjc. I reckon that small
> journals like this are easily duped into publishing crank articles,
That same journal published a P=NP "proof" in 1996.
http://rattler.cameron.edu/swjpam/vol1-96.html
Rick Decker
mjc wrote:
> I got the email that follows. Notics item (2).
>
> The journal says that two referees must approve each article.
>
> ======================================================================
>
> Print - Close Window
> Date: Wed, 5 May 2004 05:31:17 -0500 (CDT)
> From: s...@rattler.cameron.edu
> To: swj...@rattler.cameron.edu
> Subject: [Swjpam] Issue #2, December 2003
>
> Issue #2, December 2003 is available at
>
> http://rattler.cameron.edu/swjpam/vol2-03.html
>
> Topics include:
<snip>
>
> 2. Advanced Polynomial Factorization by James Harris
>
<snip>
That's a pity, first because James now has a false
result in a journal and second because it shows that
the SWJPAM's referees fumbled the ball (not to mention
that their copyediting seems to be nonexistent).
For those interested, James' result in the paper was
shown to be false in general by Arturo in October '02
and a specific demonstration was given by Dale in
September of '03, both in this ng.
Regards,
Rick
Moshe Adrian
paper?
Moshe
Rick Decker
Moshe Adrian wrote:
Good question. I would, but I'd just be parroting other people's
arguments, so I'm reluctant to do so, especially without explicit
permission from Arturo and Dale (not to mention that an article
titled "Harris Fumbles" wouldn't do a thing for my publication list).
Still, it irks me to have falsehoods stand without challenge.
Regards,
Rick
Arturo Magidin
A much better question would be to ask just what it is the paper
allegedly contains. I don't remember ever seeing the text of a paper
by James with this title, only perhaps talking about it
second-hand. I'm not sure which message of mine you are refering to,
and I wouldn't know whether the paper contains something that is
really contradicted by whatever it was I said.
In any case, such a note would normally be termed "Correction to..."
or "Corrigendum:..."
--
======================================================================
"It's not denial. I'm just very selective about
what I accept as reality."
--- Calvin ("Calvin and Hobbes")
======================================================================
Arturo Magidin
mag...@math.berkeley.edu
Daniel Ryan
> shown to be false in general by Arturo in October '02
> and a specific demonstration was given by Dale in
> September of '03, both in this ng.
If so, then you should get ahold of him and ask him to send a rejoinder to
the same journal.
Richard Henry
"Daniel Ryan" <danie...@sprint.ca> wrote in message
news:Ongmc.1874$oq3....@newscontent-01.sprint.ca...
A link to google groups should be sufficient.
Rick Decker
Arturo Magidin wrote:
> In article <40996BF2...@hamilton.edu>,
> Rick Decker <rde...@hamilton.edu> wrote:
>
>>
>>Moshe Adrian wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Is anyone here going to notify the journal of the falseness of the JSH
>>>paper?
>>>
>>>Moshe
>>>
>>>
>>Good question. I would, but I'd just be parroting other people's
>>arguments, so I'm reluctant to do so, especially without explicit
>>permission from Arturo and Dale (not to mention that an article
>>titled "Harris Fumbles" wouldn't do a thing for my publication list).
>>Still, it irks me to have falsehoods stand without challenge.
>>
>
> A much better question would be to ask just what it is the paper
> allegedly contains. I don't remember ever seeing the text of a paper
> by James with this title, only perhaps talking about it
> second-hand. I'm not sure which message of mine you are refering to,
> and I wouldn't know whether the paper contains something that is
> really contradicted by whatever it was I said.
>
Quoting from the bottom of the first page of the JSH paper:
[G]iven the factorization, in the ring of algebraic
integers,
65x^3 - 12x + 1 = (a_1x + 1)(a_2x + 1)(a_3x + 1)
one of the a's is coprime to 5.
This is contradicted by your result posted here on 12 October, '02.
<snip>
Regards,
Rick
J Silverman
If you take a look at the list of editors, you'll see one reason why
they may be having problems with quality control. It's not a good sign
when all of a journal's editors come from a very small number of
schools. Most math journals that I know have only one (or possibly
two) editors from any given school.
Rick, rather than sending them a "Harris Fumbles" article (which I
assume was a joke), you could simply send the main editor a heads up
about this thread, with the URL, and let him read it and take whatever
action he wants (which might be none, but that's his concern).
Joe
CapCity
"Jesse F. Hughes" <je...@phiwumbda.org> wrote in message
news:874qquy...@phiwumbda.org...
> Wow. I know that many cranks get an article published here and there,
> to the detriment of the journals' reputations. But somehow I never
> thought that JSH would actually do so. Who knew?
>
> The article preprint is three pages long. The journal is evidently
> associated with Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma, but I really
> don't remember anything about that school despite being raised in OK.
>
Oklahoma?
He's in Dr. Ullrich's neighborhood now. Not sure why, but I find that almost
humorous.
Maybe JSH and the Attorney General can meet over drinks?
Arturo Magidin
Rick Decker <rde...@hamilton.edu> wrote:
>
>
>Arturo Magidin wrote:
>> A much better question would be to ask just what it is the paper
>> allegedly contains. I don't remember ever seeing the text of a paper
>> by James with this title, only perhaps talking about it
>> second-hand. I'm not sure which message of mine you are refering to,
>> and I wouldn't know whether the paper contains something that is
>> really contradicted by whatever it was I said.
>>
>
>Quoting from the bottom of the first page of the JSH paper:
>
> [G]iven the factorization, in the ring of algebraic
> integers,
>
> 65x^3 - 12x + 1 = (a_1x + 1)(a_2x + 1)(a_3x + 1)
>
> one of the a's is coprime to 5.
>
>This is contradicted by your result posted here on 12 October, '02.
Ah, yes, the coprimeness stuff. Then it is easy enough to send a
correction to the journal. A Corrigendum simply noting the explicit
factorization found (and giving the attribution).
Arturo Magidin
Nathan Penton <npe...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>I don't understand why they approved JSH, though. At any rate, I kind
>of look forward to reading the mathscinet review.
In the immediately previous issue, of 10 papers, 5 will not be
reviewed and one of the remainig papers received a review which merely
quotes the summary. In the one before that, 1 paper was not reviewed
at all and six merely had their own summary quoted.
Don't hold your breath. (-:
Andrzej Kolowski
> In article <40996BF2...@hamilton.edu>,
> Rick Decker <rde...@hamilton.edu> wrote:
> >
> >
> >Moshe Adrian wrote:
> >
> >> Is anyone here going to notify the journal of the falseness of the JSH
> >> paper?
> >>
> >> Moshe
> >>
> >Good question. I would, but I'd just be parroting other people's
> >arguments, so I'm reluctant to do so, especially without explicit
> >permission from Arturo and Dale (not to mention that an article
> >titled "Harris Fumbles" wouldn't do a thing for my publication list).
> >Still, it irks me to have falsehoods stand without challenge.
>
> A much better question would be to ask just what it is the paper
> allegedly contains. I don't remember ever seeing the text of a paper
> by James with this title, only perhaps talking about it
> second-hand. I'm not sure which message of mine you are refering to,
> and I wouldn't know whether the paper contains something that is
> really contradicted by whatever it was I said.
>
>
> In any case, such a note would normally be termed "Correction to..."
> or "Corrigendum:..."
>
This is an appalling incident and a black mark on the peer review
process and mathematics in general.
I think it is important to write to the editor with an explicit
argument that the claimed results are incorrect (as shown here
by several people) and to demand not simply a Corrigendum, but
actual withdrawal of the article. I have had doubts that electronic
journals will be edited with the same rigor that print journals
typically are, and this is definitive proof that sometimes they
are not. However, one apparent advantage is that articles can
be withdrawn. In this case it may well be that the entire JOURNAL
should be withdrawn.
Andrzej
Arturo Magidin
Rick Decker <rde...@hamilton.edu> wrote:
>For those interested, James' result in the paper was
>shown to be false in general by Arturo in October '02
>and a specific demonstration was given by Dale in
>September of '03, both in this ng.
In my post in October (the only when where I've found the explicit
statement of the observation) I already give the result by saying
"here it is again". As for Dale's numerical calculation, in early
August 2003 he was already repeating it, and Keith Ramsay rejoinded that
he had "lost count" of how many times an explicit common factor had
been given.
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=20030811015606.10078.00001234%40mb-m26.aol.com
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3F37D13C.40008%40farir.com
Rick Decker
Arturo Magidin wrote:
> In article <40995976...@hamilton.edu>,
> Rick Decker <rde...@hamilton.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
>>For those interested, James' result in the paper was
>>shown to be false in general by Arturo in October '02
>>and a specific demonstration was given by Dale in
>>September of '03, both in this ng.
>>
>
> In my post in October (the only when where I've found the explicit
> statement of the observation) I already give the result by saying
> "here it is again". As for Dale's numerical calculation, in early
> August 2003 he was already repeating it, and Keith Ramsay rejoinded that
> he had "lost count" of how many times an explicit common factor had
> been given.
>
Dale has remarked here that his first calculations along those lines
appeared on 21 June 2003.
> http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=20030811015606.10078.00001234%40mb-m26.aol.com
> http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3F37D13C.40008%40farir.com
>
Unless anyone objects, I'll send a polite heads-up to SWJPAM. They
of course will do with it what they want.
Regards,
Rick
Bill Dubuque
>Rick Decker <rde...@hamilton.edu> wrote:
>>
>> For those interested, James' result in the paper was
>> shown to be false in general by Arturo in October '02
>> and a specific demonstration was given by Dale in
>> September of '03, both in this ng.
>
> In my post in October (the only when where I've found the explicit
> statement of the observation) I already give the result by saying
> "here it is again". As for Dale's numerical calculation, in early
> August 2003 he was already repeating it, and Keith Ramsay rejoinded that
> he had "lost count" of how many times an explicit common factor had
> been given.
>
> http://google.com/groups?selm=3F37D13C.40008%40farir.com
See also my post of 2003-08-04 where I presented explicit ideal
calculations that are both easily and quickly mentally verified:
http://google.com/groups?threadm=y8z7k5tcasr.fsf%40nestle.ai.mit.edu
However, iirc, the essence of this refutation dates much earlier.
-Bill Dubuque
J Silverman
> This is an appalling incident and a black mark on the peer review
> process and mathematics in general.
>
> I think it is important to write to the editor with an explicit
> argument that the claimed results are incorrect (as shown here
> by several people) and to demand not simply a Corrigendum, but
> actual withdrawal of the article. I have had doubts that electronic
> journals will be edited with the same rigor that print journals
> typically are, and this is definitive proof that sometimes they
> are not. However, one apparent advantage is that articles can
> be withdrawn. In this case it may well be that the entire JOURNAL
> should be withdrawn.
>
> Andrzej
and publish mainly articles by their editors and friends. So I don't
think it is fair to tar all electronic journals with the same brush.
Some of them are very good. For example, the New York Journal of Math
has a topnotch editorial board and publishes good stuff. (Disclaimer:
I recently published an article in the NYJM, my first fully electronic
article, but I have no other affiliation with the NYJM.) Ditto the
electronic journal being published by the London Math Society, it's a
good journal. In practice, journals that publish uninteresting (or
incorrect) mathematics will end up being largely ignored.
Joe
Robin Chapman
If you read the paper, you will find that it will be quite hard
to refute anything in it; not because the results are true, but that
they are stated so vaguely that it is impossible to assign any sort
of definite meaning to them.
--
Robin Chapman, www.maths.ex.ac.uk/~rjc/rjc.html
"Lacan, Jacques, 79, 91-92; mistakes his penis for a square root, 88-9"
Francis Wheen, _How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World_
W. Dale Hall
Rick Decker wrote:
>
>
> Arturo Magidin wrote:
>
>> In article <40995976...@hamilton.edu>, Rick Decker
>> <rde...@hamilton.edu> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> For those interested, James' result in the paper was shown to be
>>> false in general by Arturo in October '02 and a specific
>>> demonstration was given by Dale in September of '03, both in this
>>> ng.
>>>
>>
>> In my post in October (the only when where I've found the explicit
>> statement of the observation) I already give the result by saying
>> "here it is again". As for Dale's numerical calculation, in early
>> August 2003 he was already repeating it, and Keith Ramsay rejoinded
>> that he had "lost count" of how many times an explicit common
>> factor had been given.
>>
>
> Dale has remarked here that his first calculations along those lines
> appeared on 21 June 2003.
>
>
>> http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=20030811015606.10078.00001234%4-
>> 0mb-m26.aol.com
>>
>> http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3F37D13C.40008%40farir.com
>>
>
>
> Unless anyone objects, I'll send a polite heads-up to SWJPAM. They of
> course will do with it what they want.
>
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Rick
>
>
>
I have done just that. Here is the text of my note:
> Dear Sirs,
>
> The December 2003 issue of your journal, Southwest Journal of Pure
> and Applied Mathematics, publishes the article "Advanced Polynomial
> Factorization" by James Harris. This note is to inform you that the
> article's main result, the claim that the factorization of the
> polynomial
>
> 65 x^3 - 12 x + 1 = (a_1 x + 1)(a_2 x + 1)(a_3 x + 1)
>
> one of the a's is coprime to 5, is in error.
>
> I'll expand on the proof of this error in my postscript.
>
> My sole intent in this note is one of information. I have no
> expectations one way or the other regarding how you treat this
> information, but you are certainly welcome to determine its
> correctness.
>
> If you check the Usenet record (via Google, for instance), you'll
> quickly get the picture that this has been a topic of no small amount
> of heated discussion on sci.math over the past year, at least (and if
> extended to ancillary topics, over the past several years. I would
> not, for instance, recommend becoming entangled in this by now
> fruitless discussion on sci.math
>
> Kindest regards,
>
> W. Dale Hall (wdh...@alum.mit.edu)
>
> PS.
>
> Several proofs of this error have appeared online in the Usenet
> newsgroup sci.math.
>
> One such article was written by me in the following article:
>
>
> http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3F1C3F01.7010501%40farir.com&oe=-
> UTF-8&output=gplain
>
> I will apologize in advance for whatever intemperate language appears
> in various articles written by me and others in this and related
> threads.
>
> The gist of the demonstration is the explicit factorization of the
> a's in the following fashion:
>
> Let
>
> r(a) = 8 a^2 - 4 a - 45
>
> Note first that r(a) is (1) an algebraic integer for any algebraic
> integer "a", (2) a divisor of both "a" and 5 for a = -(any of the
> ai's in the above factorization of 65x^3 - 12x + 1)
>
> The relevant factorizations claimed in (2) follow:
>
> q(a) = 8 a^2 - 76 a - 185
> r(a) = 8 a^2 - 4 a - 45
> s(a) = 4 a^2 - 37 a - 104
>
> Whenever a is a root of x^3 - 12 x^2 + 65 (that is, a is the
> *negative* of any of the ai's of the above factorization of
> 65x^3 - 12x + 1), the following factorizations hold:
>
> q(a) r(a) = 5 (*)
> r(a) s(a) = a.
>
> These factorizations can be established by elementary methods: for
> instance, multiplying the above polynomials in the variable x, and
> dividing the result by the polynomial p(x) = x3 - 12 x2 + 65 will
> yield the remainders given on the right sides of the above equations
> (*).
>
> First, here are the products that I'm making claims about:
>
> q(x)*r(x) = 64 x^4 - 640 x^3 - 1536 x^2 + 4160 x + 8325
> r(x)*s(x) = 32 x^4 - 312 x^3 - 864 x^2 + 2081 x + 4680
>
> Next, a couple of products of p(x) = x^3 - 12 x^2 + 65 with
> polynomials of degree 1:
>
> (64 x + 128)*(x^3 - 12 x^2 + 65) =
> 64 x^4 - 640 x^3 - 1536 x^2 + 4160 x + 8320
>
> (32 x + 72)*(x^3 - 12 x^2 + 65) =
> 32 x^4 - 312 x^3 - 864 x^2 + 2080 x + 4680
>
> Finally, we compare the results and see this:
>
> q(x)*r(x) = (64 x + 128)*p(x) + 5
> r(x)*s(x) = (32 x + 72)*p(x) + x,
>
> Note that, for any value xo that makes p(xo) = 0, that same value xo
> will make q(xo)r(xo) = 5, so r(xo) is a factor of 5.
>
> That value of xo also makes r(xo)*s(xo) = xo, so r(xo) is a factor of
> xo.
>
> In short, r(xo) becomes a factor of *both* xo and 5.
>
> Since r(x) is a polynomial with integral coefficients, r(xo) is an
> algebraic integer whenever xo is.
>
> In fact, the minimal polynomial of this number (r(a) for -a = any of
> the above ai's) is given as:
>
> MinPoly(r) = x^3 - 969 x^2 + 315 x + 5
>
> The above facts prove that this "a" has a non-unit algebraic integer
> as a factor, and thus cannot be a unit in the ring of algebraic
> integers.
>
>
Moshe Adrian
"Robin Chapman" <r...@ivorynospamtower.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:c7fdp2$qk8$1...@south.jnrs.ja.net...
Do you think that since he got this published, he will publish more articles
in this journal in a vague fashion until he finally submits an article to
the same journal that
claims the proof of FLT mostly by referencing his previous published
articles
in the journal? And since those articles were published, his "proof" of
FLT "should be correct" since the previous articles were refereed, and he
will finally get more people to read his material?
Arturo Magidin
W. Dale Hall <mailto...@pacbell.net> wrote:
[.snip.]
>I have done just that. Here is the text of my note:
[.note snipped.]
> > One such article was written by me in the following article:
> >
> >
> > http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3F1C3F01.7010501%40farir.com&oe=-
> > UTF-8&output=gplain
If you haven't sent it in, I might suggest a pointer to
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3F08EE38.8030606%40pacbell.net
instead. Not only is it earlier, it contains no "intemperate language"...
I wrote up a very short Erratum (about 3/4 of a page); I've not sent
it, and I haven't linked to it in any way. If anybody is interested,
drop me a note and I can tell you where to look. It cites your post
I just suggested, Dale, so I would appreciate it if you could take a
look. (I tried e-mailing you the link to the pacbell account, after
dropping the spam trap, but I don't know if you go tit).
Andrzej Kolowski
You did see the word "sometimes" in what I wrote, eh? In this case
I think strong preventive action is needed: unless such problems are
taken seriously, this 'journal' and others will drift farther toward
carelessness.
A.K.
> Joe
Andrzej Kolowski
I disagree. Rich Decker and Dale Hall have pointed to an explicit
claim in the paper which has been shown to be false by several people.
A.K.
Robin Chapman
> Robin Chapman <r...@ivorynospamtower.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:<c7fdp2$qk8$1...@south.jnrs.ja.net>...
>>
>> If you read the paper, you will find that it will be quite hard
>> to refute anything in it; not because the results are true, but that
>> they are stated so vaguely that it is impossible to assign any sort
>> of definite meaning to them.
>
> I disagree. Rich Decker and Dale Hall have pointed to an explicit
> claim in the paper which has been shown to be false by several people.
How definite is this claim? I presume you mean
[G]iven the factorization, in the ring of algebraic
integers,
65x^3 - 12x + 1 = (a_1x + 1)(a_2x + 1)(a_3x + 1)
one of the a's is coprime to 5.
from page 6. Now, what does "coprime" mean? Unless my discourse
was limited to the rational integers I would never speak about
two entities being "coprime" on their own. I would say that elements
of an integral domain R were "coprime in R" if they generated R as
an ideal, although I might be prepared to humour an author
who used "coprime in R" to mean having "no non-unit common factors in R".
If R is the ring of algebraic integers then these concepts are the same,
but if R is the ring of algebraic integers in a fixed number field they
may be different. Harris does not explicitly say which ring he is
considering his notion of coprimality in. OK, in the quote above he
says "in the ring of algebraic integers" but he may argue that refers
to the polynomial factorization given having algebraic integer coefficients
rather than the numbers being coprime in the ring of algebraic integers.
To summarize: I contend that the assertion that the quote means
that 5 and one of the a_i are coprime (in my sense) in the ring
of algebraic integers is deniable by Harris.
The facts of course are that 5 and each a_i are not coprime
in the ring of algebraic integers. But 5 and a_i are coprime
in the ring of algebraic numbers (as this is a field this
is a fact of profound uninterest). Without further investigation
is is not apparent whether 5 and a_i can have any common non-unit
factor in the ring of integers of Q(a_i) (this would involve
determining whether some ideals are principal or not).
On page 7 one sees that Harris has some very curious notions
of factorization. What little sense of this I can make suggests the
following. Harris allows polynomials and some algebraic functions
in his factorizations. Also that to him a polynomial f(x) divides
g(x) if f(a) divides g(a) for "all" a. Maybe he would regard
2 as a factor of x(x+1)? Actually I cannot make sense of the
first sentence on page 7.
One can only refute someone if they make a definite statement.
If they just say "wibble" then you can't refute (or confirm, or
understand) them. On p.6 Harris seems to make a definite and
refutable statement, but from p.7 onwards he just appears to be
"wibbling". But looking at the above quote, I am not convinced
that it is definite enough to be refuted. What previous correspondents
have done is not to refute what Harris has written, but to refute
what they would have meant by Harris's statement (though they surely
would never have written such a badly worded statement).
An alternative line of attack to refuting Harris would be
to point out to the journal that both the copy-editing
and the literary quality of the paper are utterly inadequate.
Richard Henry
"W. Dale Hall" <mailto...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:409B547B...@pacbell.net...
>
>
> Rick Decker wrote:
<...>
> > Unless anyone objects, I'll send a polite heads-up to SWJPAM. They of
> > course will do with it what they want.
>
> I have done just that. Here is the text of my note:
>
> > Dear Sirs,
> >
> > The December 2003 issue of your journal, Southwest Journal of Pure
> > and Applied Mathematics, publishes the article "Advanced Polynomial
> > Factorization" by James Harris. This note is to inform you that the
> > article's main result, the claim that the factorization of the
> > polynomial
> >
> > 65 x^3 - 12 x + 1 = (a_1 x + 1)(a_2 x + 1)(a_3 x + 1)
> >
> > one of the a's is coprime to 5, is in error.
> >
<...>
Apparently they listened. The article is no longer on-line.
Avi Montague
> I have done just that. Here is the text of my note:
Let me be the lone voice of dissent here, and say that this all strikes me
as a bit mean. I know James's result is wrong, but it hardly seems fair,
when this is a crappy journal that publishes wrong stuff anyway, that
James's particular wrong stuff gets a horde of internet police writing
letters to the editor in an effort to have the article yanked. It's like
calling the FBI on your neighbour you don't like who has been copying VHS
tapes. Have a heart. James is never going to be competing for a job you're
applying for, who cares if he has a bogus publication? I say, good for
James for working it up into a form that apparently got it past an
incompetent reviewer. He's spent enough years on his little problems, that
even if he's never learned very much math, and has no new result to speak
of, I'd like to think of him publishing something. It might even make him
feel more responsible, and collegiate, in his dealings with sci.math in
the future (for I certainly believe there will be more dealings in the
years to come).
To me this is spite, clothing itself as scientific responsibility.
Arturo Magidin
Robin Chapman <r...@ivorynospamtower.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>One can only refute someone if they make a definite statement.
>If they just say "wibble" then you can't refute (or confirm, or
>understand) them. On p.6 Harris seems to make a definite and
>refutable statement, but from p.7 onwards he just appears to be
>"wibbling". But looking at the above quote, I am not convinced
>that it is definite enough to be refuted. What previous correspondents
>have done is not to refute what Harris has written, but to refute
>what they would have meant by Harris's statement (though they surely
>would never have written such a badly worded statement).
That's certainly true.
>An alternative line of attack to refuting Harris would be
>to point out to the journal that both the copy-editing
>and the literary quality of the paper are utterly inadequate.
Also certainly true. One may point out to the editor that the
publishing of an article such as this (in which, for example, roman
characters and italic characters for specific quantities or objects
are interchanged freely even when the characters are notably
different, such as roman 'a' vs. italic 'a') cannot possibly be
justified in a journal that claims to be "peer-reviewed".
Arturo Magidin
Avi Montague <a...@not.really.example.com> wrote:
>W. Dale Hall <mailto...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>> I have done just that. Here is the text of my note:
>
>Let me be the lone voice of dissent here, and say that this all strikes me
>as a bit mean. I know James's result is wrong, but it hardly seems fair,
>when this is a crappy journal that publishes wrong stuff anyway, that
>James's particular wrong stuff gets a horde of internet police writing
>letters to the editor in an effort to have the article yanked.
I too think that calling for the article to be yanked is not the
correct course of action. Giving a correction or pointers to
discussions in sci.math seems more than adequate.
Robin Chapman
> In article <c7g7pq$jru$1...@news.fas.harvard.edu>,
> Avi Montague <a...@not.really.example.com> wrote:
>>W. Dale Hall <mailto...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>
>>> I have done just that. Here is the text of my note:
>>
>>Let me be the lone voice of dissent here, and say that this all strikes me
>>as a bit mean. I know James's result is wrong, but it hardly seems fair,
>>when this is a crappy journal that publishes wrong stuff anyway, that
>>James's particular wrong stuff gets a horde of internet police writing
>>letters to the editor in an effort to have the article yanked.
>
> I too think that calling for the article to be yanked is not the
> correct course of action. Giving a correction or pointers to
> discussions in sci.math seems more than adequate.
It has been yanked ... I think this is really rather sinister.
If an electronic journal "publishes" a paper it has a moral obligation
to keep it available on the same terms as those published at the
same time. If they remove a totally worthless paper now, what could
they do next? Remove a paper with a serious errror in it?
a paper with a minor error in it? a correct but weak paper?
a mediocre paper? an average paper? It's also a bit spineless
to erase one's embarassing mistake rather than standing up and
admitting one's error.
David Einstein
They have now proved that they are idiots for publishing it, and craven
idiots for yanking it. I am no fan of JSH, but my already low opinion of
SWJPAM has decreased. They could put little red warning signs all over
it, surround it with refutations, whatever, but I think that they have
an obligation to all their authors and readers to admit to their
failures and not attempt to hide them.
Arturo Magidin
Robin Chapman <r...@ivorynospamtower.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>Arturo Magidin wrote:
>
>> In article <c7g7pq$jru$1...@news.fas.harvard.edu>,
>> Avi Montague <a...@not.really.example.com> wrote:
>>>W. Dale Hall <mailto...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I have done just that. Here is the text of my note:
>>>
>>>Let me be the lone voice of dissent here, and say that this all strikes me
>>>as a bit mean. I know James's result is wrong, but it hardly seems fair,
>>>when this is a crappy journal that publishes wrong stuff anyway, that
>>>James's particular wrong stuff gets a horde of internet police writing
>>>letters to the editor in an effort to have the article yanked.
>>
>> I too think that calling for the article to be yanked is not the
>> correct course of action. Giving a correction or pointers to
>> discussions in sci.math seems more than adequate.
>
>It has been yanked ... I think this is really rather sinister.
>If an electronic journal "publishes" a paper it has a moral obligation
>to keep it available on the same terms as those published at the
>same time.
I agree; it is also a service to the community it claims to serve:
knowing that the journal has accepted papers a certain quality tells
you something about the quality of the journal. And knowing that is
important.
Arturo Magidin
Robin Chapman <r...@ivorynospamtower.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>It has been yanked ... I think this is really rather sinister.
>If an electronic journal "publishes" a paper it has a moral obligation
>to keep it available on the same terms as those published at the
>same time.
Well, they also removed it from the postscript of the entire issue,
which now lacks pages 7 and 8. But they did not remove the title
from the index of the issue.
W. Dale Hall
Please read what I said, rather than what you suppose I said. In the
first place, my note *only* spelled out the error. In addition, I must
maintain that I did not call for its rejection. Note the following:
My sole intent in this note is one of information.
I have no expectations one way or the other regarding
how you treat this information, but you are certainly
welcome to determine its correctness.
Read into this pair of sentences what you will, but I put it forth to be
taken *at face value*. I have no interest, one way or the other, what
becomes of that paper's submission, but it is not a mean act to indicate
to another person (in this case the chief editor of the journal) that he
may not understand what he is doing, and I find that I resent your
suggestion that it is.
If I am personally about to publish an error, I regard it as a *service*
to be informed of the error. I did as much for JSH on every occasion I
was able to do, and until he rebuffed my notes with more rancor than you
can dredge up, my tone was always a neutral one.
Since he (JSH) saw fit to ignore the facts, when I became aware of the
present situation, it suggested to me that either the editor or the
referees had been asleep at the switch. I think my note to the editor
was a reasonable action, designed to provide the editor with more
information than he apparently had. Note that I did not simply make
my claim of incorrectness: I provided the outlines of a proof.
Technical journals are not the equivalent of Usenet newsgroups: they are
records of technical results, and their intent is to provide information
that has been reviewed meticulously. Students and researchers frequently
go back to take results from these journals for application to their own
work, and it is irresponsible for a professional to stand by with the
knowledge that a certain result is false, and yet fail to contact either
the author or the editor (if not both) with that knowledge.
Your desire for JSH to be successful in publication is reasonable.
However, it is no honor to publish under a reduced set of standards,
either for the author so admitted, or for the journal that manages to
relax its requirements for the sake of the author's vanity. A journal
must observe whatever criteria it determines necessary for its published
articles to have the appropriate quality, and for the journal to
maintain its standing in the technical community. If it is, as you
state, "a crappy journal anyway", then what's the harm in informing its
editorial staff that it's about to publish yet another of its legion of
incorrect results? If the editors are unconcerned about incorrect
results, they will proceed in the face of such evidence. If they are,
however, interested in maintaining at least the veneer of respect, but
perhaps inept at assembling a roster of qualified referrees, what's the
harm in occasionally pitching in and letting the guy in charge know
what's up? Why should JSH get a pass, but then require the editors of
"crappy journals, anyway" to publish errored results in the face of
explicit knowledge of extant errors?
How would you justify "lowering the bar" so that one bad citizen can
feel better about himself and behave better in the future? What journals
should participate in this activity? Do we need Archie publishing in the
Annals? How about Ross having volumes in Seminaire Bourbaki? Maybe
Nathan's Famous (age 11) in the Publications Mathématiques de l'IHÉS?
Maybe we shouldn't limit our activities to technical publications? How
about a Special Olympics version of the entire gamut of technical life?
Special Graduate Programs, Special Research Institutes, Special Nobel
Prizes, The Special National Academy of Sciences, Special Fields Medals,
where does it all end?
I've had my rant, and gotta do something else anyway.
Dale.
John Roberts-Jones
>I got the email that follows. Notics item (2).
>
>The journal says that two referees must approve each article.
>
>======================================================================
>
> Print - Close Window
>Date: Wed, 5 May 2004 05:31:17 -0500 (CDT)
>From: s...@rattler.cameron.edu
>To: swj...@rattler.cameron.edu
>Subject: [Swjpam] Issue #2, December 2003
>
>Issue #2, December 2003 is available at
>
>http://rattler.cameron.edu/swjpam/vol2-03.html
>
>Topics include:
>
>2. Advanced Polynomial Factorization by James Harris
>
Is this the same as the paper of the same title accepted by the
Mega Foundation for the Summer/Fall 2003 issue of Noeon?
If so, who owns the copyright?
John Roberts-Jones
Mikito Harakiri
> and publish mainly articles by their editors and friends. So I don't
> think it is fair to tar all electronic journals with the same brush.
> Some of them are very good. For example, the New York Journal of Math
> has a topnotch editorial board and publishes good stuff. (Disclaimer:
> I recently published an article in the NYJM, my first fully electronic
> article, but I have no other affiliation with the NYJM.) Ditto the
> electronic journal being published by the London Math Society, it's a
> good journal. In practice, journals that publish uninteresting (or
> incorrect) mathematics will end up being largely ignored.
Today, is it really important what magazine rating is? It's just an
envelope for the content. If an article is worthy it'll get
referenced. And reference to electronic content is all that really
matters, as reader just downloads pdf and prints it out. Which IMO is
especially true for old publications...
Bill Dubuque
>
> Apparently they listened. The article is no longer on-line.
Below is the full text, extracted from the original postscript.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Electronic Journal: Southwest Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics
Internet: http://rattler.cameron.edu/swjpam.html
ISSN 1083
Issue 2, December 2003, pp. 6--8.
Submitted: July 25, 2003. Published: December 31 2003.
ADVANCED POLYNOMIAL FACTORIZATION
James Harris
Eail Address: jst...@msn.com
ABSTRACT. Algebraic method for determining distribution of factors
within a polynomial factorization, which breaks through what was seen
as a barrier from overinterpretations of Galois Theory.
A.M.S. (MOS) Subject Classification Codes. 11R04,11R09
KEY WORDS AND PHRASES. Polynomial factorization, Galois theory,
Factorization lemma, Ring of algebraic integers
ADVANCED POLYNOMIAL FACTORIZATION APPROACHED.
Determining the distribution of factors within irrational algebraic
integers has long been considered impossible as it is not possible to
do using Galois Theory. However a simple technique through the
introduction of more variables makes it possible. To highlight the
standard belief consider the algebraic integer roots of x^2 + x - 5.
While you know that the algebraic integer factors are themselves
factors of 5, can either not have non unit factors of 5? How do you
know?
In looking to consider distribution of algebraic integer factors
within a factorization I'll be using a more complicated example than
x^2 + x - 5.
This paper will show, using basic algebraic methods, that given the
factorization, in the ring of algebraic integers,
65 x^3 - 12 x + 1 = (a1 x + 1)(a2 x + 1)(a3 x + 1)
one of the a's is coprime to 5.
First I'll need a simple lemma to generalize beyond factors of a
polynomial that are themselves polynomials.
FACTORIZATION LEMMA:
Given a factor g of a polynomial P(x), further defined as a factor for
all x, which means that the value of g for a value 'a' of x is a factor
of P(a), within the ring of algebraic integers, there exists r and c
such that
g = r + c
where r=0, or varies as x varies, and c is a factor of the constant term
P(0) and is itself constant.
Let x=0, then g must be a factor of P(0), so at that point c = g.
If when x does not equal 0, g=c, r=0. If when x does not equal 0, g!=c
there must exist r which varies with x. That is, r=g. []
As an example consider sqrt(x + 1) which is a non polynomial factor of
x+1, and while there are an infinity of irrational solutions consider
the rational solution at x=35.
Then I have sqrt(35 + 1) = 6 = 5 + 1; therefore when x=35, g=6, r=5,
and c=1. But for different values of x, g and r will vary, while c will
not.
PRIMARY ARGUMENT.
Given
65 x^3 - 12 x + 1 = (a1 x + 1)(a2 x + 1)(a3 x + 1)
in the ring of algebraic integers. Let
P(m) = f^2 ((m^3 f^4 - 3m^2 f^2 + 3m) x^3 - 3(-1 + mf^2) xu^2 + u^3 f)
Here f is a non unit, non zero algebraic integer coprime to 3 and x,
and u a non unit, non zero algebraic integer coprime to f. Note P(m)
has a factor that is f^2 .
That expression comes from expanding (v^3 + 1) x^3 - 3 vxy^2 + y^3,
using the substitutions v = -1 + m f^2, and y = uf, where additional
variables provide an additional degree of freedom.
Now consider the factorization
P(m) = (a1 x + uf)(a2 x + uf)(a3 x + uf)
where multiplying out shows that
a1 a2 a3 = m^3 f^6 - 3 m^2 f^4 + 3m f^2 = f^2 (m^3 f^4 - 3 m^2 f^2 + 3m)
so
a1 a2 a3 = m f^2 (m^2 f^4 - 3 m f^2 + 3).
Therefore, at least one of the a's cannot be coprime to m, and at
least one of the a's must equal 0 when m=0.
(Note: The a's are roots of a monic polynomial with algebraic integer
coefficients so they are algebraic integers.)
Notice that the constant term P(0) is given by P(0) = f^2 (3x u^2 +
u^3 f) and also that P(0)/f^2 = 3x u^2 + u^3 f, which is coprime to f.
Then I have the factor of P(m), g1, where g1 = a1 x + uf, where here
I also have that a1 is not coprime to m.
From my factorization lemma, I have that, when m=0
g1 = c = uf
meaning f is a factor of the constant term.
Therefore, exactly two of the a's equal 0, when m=0, to get the factor
f^2 in the constant term P(0), while one must not equal 0, or f^3 would
be the factor.
Now as noted before in general P(m) has a factor that is f^2, and
separating that factor off, gives a constant term coprime to f;
therefore, given g1 = a1 x + uf where with m = 0, g1 gives a factor of
f it must have that same factor in general, proving that two of the a's
have a factor that is f .
Therefore, one factor is coprime to f.
Now letting m=1, f=sqrt(5), where I can let u=1 as its value doesn't
change the a's, I have
(m^3 f^6 - 3m^2 f^4 + 3m)x^3 - 3(-1 + mf^2)xu^2 + u^3 = 65x^3 - 12x + 1
which may be more easily seen from using v = -1 + mf^2 = 4, y=1 with
(v^3 + 1) x^3 - 3vxy^2 + y^3 .
Therefore, with the factorization
65 x^3 - 12 x + 1 = (a1 x + 1)(a2 x + 1)(a3 x + 1)
one of the a's is coprime to 5, which shows where some of the algebraic
integer factors distribute despite the factors being irrational.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Arturo Magidin
Took me a while to find it, since it seems that the Foundation moved
and the Journal changed name. Perhaps that lawsuit that was mentioned
back then...
In any case, I found that James is listed in
http://www.iomas.com/gina/ultrahiq/mega-society/NoesisArchive/NoesisEditors.html
but I cannot find the issue or the text.
John Roberts-Jones
The index of that issue is still online, at http://www.noeon.net/
after clicking on 'Electronic Journal'. For some reason James
stopped boasting of this in his blog several weeks ago.
John Roberts-Jones
Rick Decker
Avi Montague wrote:
> W. Dale Hall <mailto...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>
>>I have done just that. Here is the text of my note:
>>
>
> Let me be the lone voice of dissent here, and say that this all strikes me
> as a bit mean. I know James's result is wrong, but it hardly seems fair,
> when this is a crappy journal that publishes wrong stuff anyway, that
> James's particular wrong stuff gets a horde of internet police writing
> letters to the editor in an effort to have the article yanked.
Where exactly is this "horde of internet police" you're talking about
and upon what do you base your conclusion that there have been any
letters to the editor attempting to have the article yanked?
It's like
> calling the FBI on your neighbour you don't like who has been copying VHS
> tapes. Have a heart. James is never going to be competing for a job you're
> applying for, who cares if he has a bogus publication?
Err, perphaps the publication's editors might want to know? For all
we know (perhaps in spite of some evidence to the contrary), the
editors actually care about the truth or falsehood of what they publish
and would take umbrage at a knowing attempt to capitalize on their
apparently sloppy refereeing and editing.
I say, good for
> James for working it up into a form that apparently got it past an
> incompetent reviewer.
"Good for James" for perpetrating a fraud? Is that actually what you
intended to imply? Whether he understood the refutations and chose to
ignore them or simply didn't understand them we can't know, but what we
do know is that he was aware of the refutations, since he responded
to them in this ng.
He's spent enough years on his little problems, that
> even if he's never learned very much math, and has no new result to speak
> of, I'd like to think of him publishing something. It might even make him
> feel more responsible, and collegiate, in his dealings with sci.math in
> the future (for I certainly believe there will be more dealings in the
> years to come).
So we should overlook the publication of a fairly easily spotted
falsehood in the hopes that this would make it easier to deal with him?
Even if this were a reasonable argument, all such a course would
lead to, IMO, is validation for further blindness in the face of
the evidence: "You can't possibly refute my FLT proof now, since
the important part is published in SWJPAM [so it must be correct]."
>
> To me this is spite, clothing itself as scientific responsibility.
>
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion. Mine is more charitable.
Regards,
Rick
Jesse F. Hughes
> Below is the full text, extracted from the original postscript.
I don't think this is an exercise of fair use rights. James or
perhaps the journal has the copyright on this article.
--
Jesse Hughes
"My experience indicates that the people who post on this newsgroup
are about at the level of a 10 year old in the year 2060."
-- More wisdom from James Harris, time traveler
Avi Montague
> In the first place, my note *only* spelled out the error.
And when you're a kid and you tell your parents that your brother took
some cookies, you're only pointing out some factual event, you're not
specifically asking them to punish him--but you *know* what'll happen when
you tell.
> In addition, I must
> maintain that I did not call for its rejection. Note the following:
>
> My sole intent in this note is one of information.
> I have no expectations one way or the other regarding
> how you treat this information, but you are certainly
> welcome to determine its correctness.
Ok. You didn't call for the paper's rejection, but you no doubt felt that
it should have been rejected, and that its acceptance was an aberration
that needed to be overturned (all of which I agree with except the last 5
words). I just think that instead of getting worked up about it, hunting
down google threads and composing a letter to the editor, you might have
let James get away with it.
> Read into this pair of sentences what you will, but I put it forth to be
> taken *at face value*. I have no interest, one way or the other, what
> becomes of that paper's submission, but it is not a mean act to indicate
> to another person (in this case the chief editor of the journal) that he
> may not understand what he is doing, and I find that I resent your
> suggestion that it is.
I apologise for any offence. I was really reacting to the whole thread,
and the gratuitous outrage, rather than just to your note to the editor.
> If I am personally about to publish an error, I regard it as a *service*
> to be informed of the error.
That's because you're a competent mathematician and care about the quality
of your research. James doesn't. He cares, presumably, about having a
publication so he can feel better about himself, and feel that his
grandiose views of his ability have been validated. To me or you that's
ludicrous, but not to James. My sympathy for him in this is not due to a
feeling of "everyone deserves to feel good about themselves"--I don't
subscribe to that. But when he's actually had a success, however hollow
that success looks to you or me, it strikes me as a rotten shame to snatch
it away from him.
I know you were a tone-neutral contributor to the JSH threads, and so I'm
sorry to weigh in on you now when others have been real pricks to James
through and through. But having his article yanked will probably hurt more
than the sci.math abuse he's received. And again, I don't see anyone
relentlessly checking all the other insignificant papers published in
minor journals to make sure the integrity of the research record is
maintained.
> Since he (JSH) saw fit to ignore the facts, when I became aware of the
> present situation, it suggested to me that either the editor or the
> referees had been asleep at the switch.
So you *had* to leap in and save the day. I mean, I've written to editors
(and authors) with corrections before, when I thought it mattered. But you
know James's position - I don't think that anyone would have taken the
article very seriously. As someone else pointed out, the same journal
published a "proof" that P=NP not long ago. I didn't hear any ripples of
surprise at the time, and I doubt it changed the course of anyone's
research. James's paper wouldn't have mattered, and it would've been a
cute footnote to the JSH story.
> Technical journals are not the equivalent of Usenet newsgroups: they are
> records of technical results, and their intent is to provide information
> that has been reviewed meticulously. Students and researchers frequently
> go back to take results from these journals for application to their own
> work, and it is irresponsible for a professional to stand by with the
> knowledge that a certain result is false, and yet fail to contact either
> the author or the editor (if not both) with that knowledge.
This is a good point. I guess I'm as upset that the editors chose to yank
the article as I am that people felt the need to "out" James. I also think
that this journal doesn't have a reputation as a record of technical
results, and the editors deserved what they got by not having the paper
reviewed properly. As Arturo Magidin said, a published correction would
have been much more appropriate.
> Maybe we shouldn't limit our activities to technical publications? How
> about a Special Olympics version of the entire gamut of technical life?
> Special Graduate Programs, Special Research Institutes, Special Nobel
> Prizes, The Special National Academy of Sciences, Special Fields Medals,
> where does it all end?
Obviously I'm not advocating any of those things (though for the record I
think the Special Olympics are a Good Thing).
The bottom line is that by some fluke, James's totally unpublishable paper
was published, and that struck me as harmless, and remarkable in the way
that all highly improbable things are remarkable--but this feat, probably
quite large in James's life, was unceremoniously squashed by sci.math
outrage and the article was subsequently disappeared by the editors, and I
agree with Robin Chapman and others in this thread that that is definitely
sinister.
Arturo Magidin
>> In addition, I must
>> maintain that I did not call for its rejection. Note the following:
>>
>> My sole intent in this note is one of information.
>> I have no expectations one way or the other regarding
>> how you treat this information, but you are certainly
>> welcome to determine its correctness.
>
>Ok. You didn't call for the paper's rejection, but you no doubt felt that
>it should have been rejected, and that its acceptance was an aberration
>that needed to be overturned (all of which I agree with except the last 5
>words).
Frankly, I think you are putting words in Dale's mouth with the last
five words.
Yes: the paper should have been rejected. Yes, its acceptance was an
aberration. And this needed to be ->addressed<-. I think calling for
the journal to "retract" the article would be improper (the proper
time to ask a journal to reconsider publication is ->before<- the
article is published, as was done for example with the purported
solution to Hilbert's 10th problem recently, where the journal sent it
for a new round of refereeing give the feedback it received).
I think it was perfectly appropriate to send a note to the editor
indicating that there is an error. I myself prepared a one page
"Erratum"
http://www.math.umt.edu/magidin/preprints/erratumjames.pdf
which, though I have not sent it in, I may send next week.
The paper, having been accepted and published, should have remained in
the journal's website, and a correction printed.
[.snip.]
>> Technical journals are not the equivalent of Usenet newsgroups: they are
>> records of technical results, and their intent is to provide information
>> that has been reviewed meticulously. Students and researchers frequently
>> go back to take results from these journals for application to their own
>> work, and it is irresponsible for a professional to stand by with the
>> knowledge that a certain result is false, and yet fail to contact either
>> the author or the editor (if not both) with that knowledge.
>
>This is a good point. I guess I'm as upset that the editors chose to yank
>the article as I am that people felt the need to "out" James.
I agree with you that the decision of the editor to try to "erase" the
mistake was improper. On the other hand, I do not perceive calling
attention to this egregious failure of the peer-review system in that
journal as a "need to 'out' James." It is a case of telling an editor
of a journal that claims it peer-reviews, and requires "at least two
positive reviews" to publish a paper, that either its reviewers or its
editors are failing egregiously to meet even low standards. I think
the editor took an improper action in response to this, however.
> I also think
>that this journal doesn't have a reputation as a record of technical
>results, and the editors deserved what they got by not having the paper
>reviewed properly.
I agree. But a modicum of professional responsibility would have been
to react to this with an "Oops. Well, that's egg on our face. Here's a
correction", thus leaving for the record both their mistake, and their
willingness to face up to it.
To be honest, the editors should live with that mistake. James should
get his however-many-free-offprints of his paper, and the paper should be
indexed wherever the journal gets indexed...
David C. Ullrich
wrote:
>W. Dale Hall <mailto...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>> I have done just that. Here is the text of my note:
>
>Let me be the lone voice of dissent here, and say that this all strikes me
>as a bit mean. I know James's result is wrong, but it hardly seems fair,
>when this is a crappy journal that publishes wrong stuff anyway, that
>James's particular wrong stuff gets a horde of internet police writing
>letters to the editor in an effort to have the article yanked. It's like
>calling the FBI on your neighbour you don't like who has been copying VHS
>tapes. Have a heart. James is never going to be competing for a job you're
>applying for, who cares if he has a bogus publication? I say, good for
>James for working it up into a form that apparently got it past an
>incompetent reviewer.
You really think it's doing him a favor to pretend he's actually
published something correct, instead of letting him know that
the referees were incompetent? I disagree.
>He's spent enough years on his little problems, that
>even if he's never learned very much math, and has no new result to speak
>of, I'd like to think of him publishing something. It might even make him
>feel more responsible, and collegiate, in his dealings with sci.math in
>the future (for I certainly believe there will be more dealings in the
>years to come).
>
>To me this is spite,
Heh. If that's what it is there's a reason for it.
>clothing itself as scientific responsibility.
************************
David C. Ullrich
David C. Ullrich
<r...@ivorynospamtower.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>Arturo Magidin wrote:
>
>> In article <c7g7pq$jru$1...@news.fas.harvard.edu>,
>> Avi Montague <a...@not.really.example.com> wrote:
>>>W. Dale Hall <mailto...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I have done just that. Here is the text of my note:
>>>
>>>Let me be the lone voice of dissent here, and say that this all strikes me
>>>as a bit mean. I know James's result is wrong, but it hardly seems fair,
>>>when this is a crappy journal that publishes wrong stuff anyway, that
>>>James's particular wrong stuff gets a horde of internet police writing
>>>letters to the editor in an effort to have the article yanked.
>>
>> I too think that calling for the article to be yanked is not the
>> correct course of action. Giving a correction or pointers to
>> discussions in sci.math seems more than adequate.
>
>It has been yanked ... I think this is really rather sinister.
>If an electronic journal "publishes" a paper it has a moral obligation
>to keep it available on the same terms as those published at the
>same time. If they remove a totally worthless paper now, what could
>they do next? Remove a paper with a serious errror in it?
>a paper with a minor error in it? a correct but weak paper?
>a mediocre paper? an average paper? It's also a bit spineless
>to erase one's embarassing mistake rather than standing up and
>admitting one's error.
Yep.
************************
David C. Ullrich
Richard Henry
"Avi Montague" <a...@example.com> wrote in message
news:c7gu5l$qv0$1...@news.fas.harvard.edu...
Your load of crap : social commentary :: JSH's papers : mathematics.
William Rex Marshall
> In article <c7g9iq$57f$1...@south.jnrs.ja.net>,
> Robin Chapman <r...@ivorynospamtower.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
[...]
> >It has been yanked ... I think this is really rather sinister.
> >If an electronic journal "publishes" a paper it has a moral obligation
> >to keep it available on the same terms as those published at the
> >same time.
>
> I agree; it is also a service to the community it claims to serve:
> knowing that the journal has accepted papers a certain quality tells
> you something about the quality of the journal. And knowing that is
> important.
I was having trouble accessing the original site, so I checked for mirrored sites.
I've found that it has not been censored from mirror sites (e.g. http://www.ii.uj.edu.pl/EMIS/journals/SWJPAM/vol2-03.html), but I don't know how much longer it will remain available online.
I've also noticed that JSH has just posted on his blogspot, whinging about his paper being pulled from the (original) site.
William Rex Marshall
> I've found that it has not been censored from mirror sites (e.g.
> http://www.ii.uj.edu.pl/EMIS/journals/SWJPAM/vol2-03.html)
Actually, this seems to be the only mirror site online.
William Rex Marshall
Doug Norris
news:c7gu5l$qv0$1...@news.fas.harvard.edu...
> I apologise for any offence. I was really reacting to the whole thread,
> and the gratuitous outrage, rather than just to your note to the editor.
If you see it as "gratuitous outrage", then you really don't have any
grasp on how much of an asshole Harris has been in this newsgroup. He's
called my university to report me, for one. They laughed at him, but I'm
sure I'm not the only one he's done this stuff to.
He deserves everything he gets.
Doug
maky m.
you aren't exactly a sweet heart yourself.
> Doug
Doug Norris
news:188f56bf.04050...@posting.google.com...
Maybe you ought to call my university on me.
Doug
Robert Vienneau
<r...@ivorynospamtower.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> Robin Chapman, www.maths.ex.ac.uk/~rjc/rjc.html
> "Lacan, Jacques, 79, 91-92; mistakes his penis for a square root, 88-9"
> Francis Wheen, _How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World_
I heard about that Lacan text in a lecture from Alan Sokal. When
Social Text republished in a book the articles in what is probably
its most famous issue, the editors, for some reason or other, left
out Sokal's article.
James seems now able to compare himself to a world-famous physicist.
--
Try http://csf.colorado.edu/pkt/pktauthors/Vienneau.Robert/Bukharin.html
To solve Linear Programs: .../LPSolver.html
r c A game: .../Keynes.html
v s a Whether strength of body or of mind, or wisdom, or
i m p virtue, are found in proportion to the power or wealth
e a e of a man is a question fit perhaps to be discussed by
n e . slaves in the hearing of their masters, but highly
@ r c m unbecoming to reasonable and free men in search of
d o the truth. -- Rousseau
Wayne Brown
>
> The paper, having been accepted and published, should have remained in
> the journal's website, and a correction printed.
I have just sent the following note to the journal:
I wish to protest the removal of the paper "Advanced Polynomial
Factorization," by James Harris, from the December 2003 issue of SWJPAM.
While it is true that the paper contained conclusions that were
in error, as shown by W. Dale Hall's proof, I do not believe you
handled this situation in the proper way. A more appropriate response
would be to leave Mr. Harris' original paper in place and to print
Mr. Hall's correction in a subsequent issue. An academic journal has
a responsibility to print the truth, including the truth about its own
mistakes. It is far better for the reputation of your journal to admit
those mistakes and print corrections than to attempt to expunge them
from the record, which approaches engaging in "revisionist history."
I sincerely hope that you will reinstate Mr. Harris' article in its
proper place, as well as printing Mr. Hall's corrections.
--
Wayne Brown (HPCC #1104) | "When your tail's in a crack, you improvise
fwb...@bellsouth.net | if you're good enough. Otherwise you give
| your pelt to the trapper."
"e^(i*pi) = -1" -- Euler | -- John Myers Myers, "Silverlock"
Andrzej Kolowski
<c7g7pq$jru$1...@news.fas.harvard.edu>...
> W. Dale Hall <mailto...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> > I have done just that. Here is the text of my note:
>
> Let me be the lone voice of dissent here, and say that this all strikes me
> as a bit mean.
You're not the lone voice. But mean? Not pointing out this
obvious error to the editor could also be viewed as mean. What
you have here is a very carelessly edited journal (with previous
problems). Promotion- and-tenure committees count publications
in refereed journals (this is an unfortunate fact of life - P&T
committees do not invariably read the papers themselves). This
journal is supposedly refereed, and it may not be well-known to
everyone that it publishes garbage. Incompetence may well be
rewarded if papers like this one are not refereed carefully.
Having this paper in the journal casts doubt on the work of
all other papers in the same journal, probably unfairly.
On-line journals, unless they are just vanity presses, need to
have discipline like most print journals.
> I know James's result is wrong, but it hardly seems fair,
> when this is a crappy journal that publishes wrong stuff anyway, that
> James's particular wrong stuff gets a horde of internet police writing
> letters to the editor in an effort to have the article yanked.
It's true, he is one of the world's best-known cranks. That
just means that his article gets looked at where others are
ignored. If I found another erroneous paper in that or any
journal, I would write to the editor. It's wrong *not* to.
This journal may be crappy but that doesn't mean it cannot be
improved.
> It's like
> calling the FBI on your neighbour you don't like who has been copying VHS
> tapes.
No - it's more like telling someone that he has been cheated
on a recent purchase, and he should try to get his money back.
> Have a heart. James is never going to be competing for a job you're
> applying for, who cares if he has a bogus publication? I say, good for
> James for working it up into a form that apparently got it past an
> incompetent reviewer. He's spent enough years on his little problems, that
> even if he's never learned very much math, and has no new result to speak
> of, I'd like to think of him publishing something.
Why ??? You think incompetence, arrogance, malice, greed, and
stupidity should be rewarded ??? I'd prefer to think of him
never getting anything published at all unless it is actually
good, and this clearly was not. It's *hard* to write publishable
math papers. Having this twit get published while really deserving
people struggle seems incredibly unfair.
> It might even make him
> feel more responsible, and collegiate, in his dealings with sci.math in
> the future (for I certainly believe there will be more dealings in the
> years to come).
>
It is more likely that it would make him even more
insufferable, if that is possible.
> To me this is spite, clothing itself as scientific responsibility.
It's academic; the article is now withdrawn and the editor has
issued no apology or corrigendum: another sign that the
standards of this journal are below those of most print
journals.
It seems here as though the act of publication is regarded as
a sacred event. If this article were still pending publication,
and any of us were the responsible editor or referee, I think we
would all agree that it should not be published. There is just
no good justification for publishing garbage and this is clearly
garbage. In print journals, if garbage is accidentally printed,
it cannot be withdrawn. Thus print publication has some things
in common with a death sentence: it cannot be reversed. This is
not true with on-line publication.
So now it HAS been published, and suddenly our standards for
what-should-be-in-print change? Why?
The underlying question here is, what are the purposes of
peer-reviewed publication? I would say:
1. To disseminate new findings to the scientific community.
2. To provide a way to demonstrate one's priority in discovery of
new results, with some degree of validation.
Neither of these aims is met by having Harris's article
published in any journal.
Your argument seems to be: Harris has worked very hard for
many years and therefore deserves to be published. One could
thus argue for publication of the work of every persistent crank
in refereed journals. You argue further that to have this paper
withdrawn would hurt his feelings. You must know that prior to
submission of this paper to SWJPAM, Harris had seen simple
proofs that the main result was incorrect. He never even made
an attempt to refute the arguments of Dale Hall. He knew there
were unanswered disproofs and he went ahead and submitted it
anyway. Thus he submitted it under false pretenses. He
deserves the consequences, and this journal deserves the damage
it has incurred to its reputation.
I would agree that leaving it in the journal and publishing a
correction/retraction would put the journal's incompetence
more clearly in the public record, but that was not among the
motives you presented for leaving it in.
Andrzej
Christopher J. Henrich
<nos...@invalid.com> wrote:
Oh dear. If he plays it right, he can make the issue of how he was
*censored* by those *witch* *hunters* from sci.math into a long-lasting
issue that will overshadow the merits & demerits of his paper. It may
even tend to vindicate him in the eyes of some.
After all, this tactic worked for Immanuel Velikovsky.
Quinn
> whinging about his paper being pulled from the (original) site.
I find Harris' recent blog entries quite restrained. He had a paper accepted
and then pulled, and given that context, a few paragraphs that mention his
views about this is hardly "whinging" and hardly unjustified.
Consider:
http://www.acm.org/pubs/copyright_policy/
<<
2.6 "Fixity of Works".
ACM does not alter works once published. There are times, however, when it
is appropriate to publish a revised or corrected version of a work; doing so
requires the approval of the responsible editor.
>>
Now, I realize that SWJPAM is not an ACM publication, but I wouldn't be
surprised to find out that many of its editors are members of the ACM. Some
may even have publications in ACM journals. In other words, they've been
afforded a standard of fixity that James Harris doesn't appear to have been.
--
Quinn
<Insert standard disclosures and disclaimers here.>
Norm Dresner
news:fWsnc.428280$Ig.99399@pd7tw2no...
It's simply wrong. There have been literally hundreds of proofs of this
posted in this NG over the last few years.
Quinn
> > 2.6 "Fixity of Works".
> >
> > ACM does not alter works once published.
I appear to be suggesting that once a work is published in an academic
journal, it is fixed, permanent, set in place, given invariant form, cast in
stone *as published*.
I am not playing a semantic game, but pointing out that when an academic
journal publishes a work, as of the date of publication, the principle of
fixity comes into play, and it is standard protocol for rebuttal,
counterproof, et cetera, to be published as follow up after the same degree
of peer review that lead to publication is applied to the rebuttal,
counterproof, or whatever. I cited the ACM policy on this to back up my
contention that this is standard protocol.
I think it was pretty clear that this is what I was suggesting.
The moment a journal breaks with the principle of fixity, a door is opened
for academic revisionism. There are reasons for peer review, and there are
reasons for fixity. There are reasons for the process of refutation to
follow a certain protocol. I didn't invent those reasons, nor did anyone
here.
As for the posting of refutation in the newsgroup, et cetera, that's not
what I am commenting on, as the paper in question is not within my field of
study or expertise to comment on at that level.
--
Quinn
Jesse F. Hughes
> You appear to be suggesting that JSH's paper is "fixable". It's
> not. It's simply wrong. There have been literally hundreds of
> proofs of this posted in this NG over the last few years.
Where does he appear to be suggesting any such thing? The "fixity" to
which he refers has nothing to do with whether the paper is
"fixable". It is the notion that an article, once published, should
never be "unpublished" (or "depublished" perhaps).
--
"Just because you're ... in a Ph.d program it does not mean that
you're up to the challenge of being a real mathematician. Only those
who have a purity of mind and dedication to the truth as the highest
ideal have a chance." --James Harris, as Sir Galahad the Pure.
Andrzej Kolowski
news:<c7g7si$4s7$1...@south.jnrs.ja.net>...
> Andrzej Kolowski wrote:
>
> > Robin Chapman <r...@ivorynospamtower.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
> > news:<c7fdp2$qk8$1...@south.jnrs.ja.net>...
> >>
> >> If you read the paper, you will find that it will be quite hard
> >> to refute anything in it; not because the results are true, but that
> >> they are stated so vaguely that it is impossible to assign any sort
> >> of definite meaning to them.
> >
> > I disagree. Rich Decker and Dale Hall have pointed to an explicit
My mistake: Rick, not Rich.
> > claim in the paper which has been shown to be false by several people.
>
> How definite is this claim? I presume you mean
>
> [G]iven the factorization, in the ring of algebraic
> integers,
>
> 65x^3 - 12x + 1 = (a_1x + 1)(a_2x + 1)(a_3x + 1)
>
> one of the a's is coprime to 5.
>
> from page 6. Now, what does "coprime" mean?
This seems quite definite, given the preceding phrase "in the
ring of algebraic integers." Plus throughout there are references
to the same ring. His list of Keywords includes: Galois theory,
Factorization Lemma, [and] Ring of algebraic integers.
> Unless my discourse
> was limited to the rational integers I would never speak about
> two entities being "coprime" on their own. I would say that elements
> of an integral domain R were "coprime in R" if they generated R as
> an ideal, although I might be prepared to humour an author
> who used "coprime in R" to mean having "no non-unit common factors in R".
The domain is *clearly stated* as the algebraic integers.
Coprime in that ring implies exactly what you just said: "no
non-unit common factors" in that ring. That is what a very literal
reader of the paper would assume, and in this case we know (from
numerous arguments posted here) that that is exactly what Harris
meant. He was not being vague in this section of his paper.
In fact, if you read a little bit more than what you quoted above,
you will see that Harris was claiming more than simply that one of
the ai is coprime to 5; he was claiming that two of the ai are
divisible by f = sqrt(5) in the ring of algebraic integers. This is
even easier to refute than the statement above.
> If R is the ring of algebraic integers then these concepts are the same,
> but if R is the ring of algebraic integers in a fixed number field they
> may be different. Harris does not explicitly say which ring he is
> considering his notion of coprimality in. OK, in the quote above he
> says "in the ring of algebraic integers" but he may argue that refers
> to the polynomial factorization given having algebraic integer coefficients
> rather than the numbers being coprime in the ring of algebraic integers.
He "may" argue that, but he didn't. In this case he said what
he meant. You are extrapolating: he was a bit vague elsewhere in
this paper, he was habitually vague in most of his arguments,
therefore he was being vague here. But taken literally and
rigorously, his statement is not vague, but simply wrong, and the
editor/referee should have caught it. If you want to go to the
opposite extreme and second-guess what he was actually thinking,
that was of course wrong too. In this case what he said and what
he was thinking happened to be one and the same.
> To summarize: I contend that the assertion that the quote means
> that 5 and one of the a_i are coprime (in my sense) in the ring
> of algebraic integers is deniable by Harris.
>
In fact, in one of his previous arguments here, he tried to deny
something similar: when presented with the usual definition of
coprime, he claimed it was a 'circular argument'. He never
understood that the usual definition and the definition he was
assuming - no common non-unit factors in the ring - were
equivalent in the algebraic integers. Here he cannot honestly
deny *by either definition* that his statement, *with or without
the meaning he intended*, was wrong. Plus, as I note above, he
actually claimed to have shown that two of a1, a2, and a3 were
divisible in the ring of algebraic integers by f = sqrt(5).
[Even in this he mis-applied his main "result" to the polynomial
65*x^3 - 12*x + 1: it does not have constant term sqrt(5) as
would be needed to apply his main "result".]
Harris of course habitually denies obvious and intended
interpretations of what he has written when it is shown that such
interpretations lead to contradictions. That is not because he
is vague in his statements. That [in my opinion] is because he
is dishonest. So yes, anything Harris says is "deniable by
Harris". That, however, is not what you meant, eh?
> The facts of course are that 5 and each a_i are not coprime
> in the ring of algebraic integers. But 5 and a_i are coprime
> in the ring of algebraic numbers (as this is a field this
> is a fact of profound uninterest).
Even Harris would not have made the mistake of intending that
interpretation. And even if he had, he would have concluded not
that *one* of the ai was coprime to 5, but that *all three* of
them were. Anyway he states that his main "theorem" implies that
two of a1, a2, and a3 are divisible by sqrt(5) in the algebraic
integers.
> Without further investigation
> is is not apparent whether 5 and a_i can have any common non-unit
> factor in the ring of integers of Q(a_i) (this would involve
> determining whether some ideals are principal or not).
>
There is no reason to even speculate on this. You are
extrapolating in a direction that is not even hinted at in the
paper. The ring is clearly and repeatedly stated as the
algebraic integers.
> On page 7 one sees that Harris has some very curious notions
> of factorization. What little sense of this I can make suggests the
> following. Harris allows polynomials and some algebraic functions
> in his factorizations. Also that to him a polynomial f(x) divides
> g(x) if f(a) divides g(a) for "all" a. Maybe he would regard
> 2 as a factor of x(x+1)? Actually I cannot make sense of the
> first sentence on page 7.
>
> One can only refute someone if they make a definite statement.
> If they just say "wibble" then you can't refute (or confirm, or
> understand) them. On p.6 Harris seems to make a definite and
> refutable statement, but from p.7 onwards he just appears to be
> "wibbling". But looking at the above quote, I am not convinced
> that it is definite enough to be refuted. What previous correspondents
> have done is not to refute what Harris has written, but to refute
> what they would have meant by Harris's statement (though they surely
> would never have written such a badly worded statement).
>
I don't see the statement as all that badly worded. If anyone
else had said it you would have interpreted it correctly. You
are perhaps giving him the benefit of the doubt in saying it was
vague because you know that his writing has often been
vague, not because it is vague *here*. It is simply
wrong as literally written, and we know from previous statements
by Harris that in this case the literal meaning is what he
intended.
> An alternative line of attack to refuting Harris would be
> to point out to the journal that both the copy-editing
> and the literary quality of the paper are utterly inadequate.
I don't think the paper was ever read by a referee, let alone a
copy-editor.
Andrzej
Arturo Magidin
Andrzej Kolowski <akol...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Avi Montague <a...@not.really.example.com> wrote in message news:
><c7g7pq$jru$1...@news.fas.harvard.edu>...
>> W. Dale Hall <mailto...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>
>> > I have done just that. Here is the text of my note:
>>
>> Let me be the lone voice of dissent here, and say that this all strikes me
>> as a bit mean.
>
> You're not the lone voice. But mean? Not pointing out this
>obvious error to the editor could also be viewed as mean. What
>you have here is a very carelessly edited journal (with previous
>problems). Promotion- and-tenure committees count publications
>in refereed journals (this is an unfortunate fact of life - P&T
>committees do not invariably read the papers themselves). This
>journal is supposedly refereed, and it may not be well-known to
>everyone that it publishes garbage. Incompetence may well be
>rewarded if papers like this one are not refereed carefully.
>Having this paper in the journal casts doubt on the work of
>all other papers in the same journal, probably unfairly.
>On-line journals, unless they are just vanity presses, need to
>have discipline like most print journals.
Let me try to explain why I think that alerting the editor and perhaps
submitting corrections was certainly appropriate, while at the same
time why I think that the reaction of the editor (simply removing the
paper from his on-line version without a word) was inappropriate.
"Having this paper in the journal casts doubt on the work of all other
papers in the same journal, probably unfairly."
Yes; it does. And it may be "unfair" to some authors. But I think we
all agree that a journal which would publish James's manuscript (which
obviously did not go through even a cursory copy editing, let along
peer-review) warrants suspicion on any other article in the
journal. By "disappearing" an article that they had accepted, they
are in fact ->preventing<- others from finding out that "[this
journal] publishes garbage." Consider the paper 'proving' P=NP. That
one is still ont he site. And the fact that it was still on the site
allowed a reader of this newsgroup to find it, and help cast light on
how James's paper may have ended up in that journal in the first
place: it gives context. Had they simply yanked that article like they
did with James, there would be no context to know that the standard of
this journal are simply not that high (though some more investigation
may have revealed it, like the fact that about 50% of its articles get
brushed off by Math Reviews and never reviewed; that the editors come
from a small number of schools, etc).
Was it "mean to James" to alert the editor and/or send in corrections?
Perhaps. But I agree with you that it has little to do with James
directly: it has more to do with leaving a record indicating just how
badly this journal failed in its professional responsibility.
For peer-review to work (for much of science to work), professionals
must take the responsibility of indicating errors when they
occur. Professionals lend their time to peer-review (with little in
return, other than perhaps a line or two in a CV, which does not
amount to all that much in those same promotion-and-tenure, let alone
hiring, committees that you mention). So we may cut them some
slack. But by the same token, when someone sees an error and can
correct it, then it is their professional responsibility to do so,
whether or not "it matters" (as Avi put it). Which is why I think it
was certainly proper to contact the editor and alert him of the
error. It is also important to alert him that, whoever the referees
were, they should probably not be used again in the future.
This is not "being mean" towards James. This is a professional
responsibility.
By the same token, calling for any traces of the article to be removed
seems to me to also betray that professional responsibility: it is
important to have a record that says "This journal messed up." Simply
pulling the article without even a note of explanation seems both
spineless and unprofessional. If the editor had at least put up a note
explaining why the article was yanked, perhaps it might have been
acceptable. But not simply yanking it.
The journal messed up. By "publishing it", it carried that mistake to
its ultimate consequences. The difference between calling for an
article to be yanked prior to, and after, publication is, in my mind,
that prior to publication we are asking the journal to stop before it
makes a mistake. Once it makes that mistake, the journal should leave
the traces of that mistake so that the professional community knows
that this journal can make such mistakes.
Consider the recent hoopla about the alleged solution to Hilbert's
16th problem: the journal had accepted the paper. When the
corrections/complaints began to pour in, the journal yanked the paper
prior to publication. It did so with a public explanation that it had
decided, based on the feeback, to send it to another round of
refereeing. That seems to be fair. Had SWJPAM done something similar,
I might 'stand' for it, but it didn't. It just yanked it without
explanation.
>> Have a heart. James is never going to be competing for a job you're
>> applying for, who cares if he has a bogus publication? I say, good for
>> James for working it up into a form that apparently got it past an
>> incompetent reviewer. He's spent enough years on his little problems, that
>> even if he's never learned very much math, and has no new result to speak
>> of, I'd like to think of him publishing something.
>
> Why ??? You think incompetence, arrogance, malice, greed, and
>stupidity should be rewarded ??? I'd prefer to think of him
>never getting anything published at all unless it is actually
>good, and this clearly was not. It's *hard* to write publishable
>math papers. Having this twit get published while really deserving
>people struggle seems incredibly unfair.
There is another concern, though I think it is dwarfed by the
professional concerns with a journal that claims to be
"peer-reviewed":
To answer Avi's implied question of "how does it matter that James was
published?" we might add: James has often threatened to sue people who
proved his results incorrect. By getting his results published in an
allegedly peer-reviewed journal, he now has a good faith reason to
believe he was correct: the people in sci.math who said his results
were wrong were lying, they were trying to steal his credit, they were
trying to deny him his just rewards for his genius. If he were to take
the case to a lawyer, and present him with the fait accompli of a
published (and never rebutted) paper in a peer-reviewed journal, would
he be more likely to convince the lawyer to help in in such a suit?
And would not this good faith reason be sufficient to shield him from
any claim that the suit is frivolous?
Norm Dresner
> > You appear to be suggesting that JSH's paper is "fixable".
>
> > > 2.6 "Fixity of Works".
> > >
> > > ACM does not alter works once published.
>
> I appear to be suggesting that once a work is published in an academic
> journal, it is fixed, permanent, set in place, given invariant form, cast
in
> stone *as published*.
>
> I am not playing a semantic game, but pointing out that when an academic
> journal publishes a work, as of the date of publication, the principle of
> fixity comes into play, and it is standard protocol for rebuttal,
> counterproof, et cetera, to be published as follow up after the same
degree
> of peer review that lead to publication is applied to the rebuttal,
> counterproof, or whatever. I cited the ACM policy on this to back up my
> contention that this is standard protocol.
>
> I think it was pretty clear that this is what I was suggesting.
Sorry if I misunderstood your terminology.
On the other hand, almost every major medical journal and most
multi-discipline journals (e.g. Nature) have procedures in place for
withdrawing papers if they subsequently determine that something was done
wrong. I think it's more honorable to withdraw a, for example, plagiarized
paper than to leave it in the literature.
Norm
Arturo Magidin
>I've also noticed that JSH has just posted on his blogspot, whinging =
>about his paper being pulled from the (original) site.
I think that's unfair of his first posting. The second one (posted
Saturday) is certainly more strident, but quite understandable.
Let's face it: in this instance, James was cheated. He was cheated by
a journal that promised professionalism and peer-review, and did not
deliver either. He was also cheated when the editor pulled the article
without notifying him first.
He has certainly been ill-treated. I think that complaining about his
ill treatment is quite reasonable. The original complaints seemed
quite pertinent: the journal promissed professionalism, and the
journal obviously failed to deliver, at ->least<- when it yanked the
article without explanation and notified him of this after (it is
unclear what reason they gave ->him<- for doing so, but I'm willing to
wager it was not a very good one...). The new one seems to be a bit on
the paranoid side: rather than realizing he was cheated by a journal
that failed to properly review his paper, he has decided that it was
properly reviewed, properly accepted, and then yanked out of fear and
censorship. It is there that the journal has also failed him.
He has a right to complaint. Alas, much of his anger is misdirected.
Arturo Magidin
Robin Chapman <r...@ivorynospamtower.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
[.snip.]
> [G]iven the factorization, in the ring of algebraic
> integers,
>
> 65x^3 - 12x + 1 = (a_1x + 1)(a_2x + 1)(a_3x + 1)
>
> one of the a's is coprime to 5.
[.snip.]
>The facts of course are that 5 and each a_i are not coprime
>in the ring of algebraic integers. But 5 and a_i are coprime
>in the ring of algebraic numbers (as this is a field this
>is a fact of profound uninterest). Without further investigation
>is is not apparent whether 5 and a_i can have any common non-unit
>factor in the ring of integers of Q(a_i) (this would involve
>determining whether some ideals are principal or not).
Actually, Dale took care of that:
We have that a_i = -(r_i*s_i), 5 = q_i*r_i
where q_i = 8a_i^2 + 76a_i - 185
r_i = 8a_i^2 + 4a_i - 45
s_i = 4a_i^2 + 37a_i - 104.
In this instance, there was no need to go to roots, so q_i, r_i, and
s_i are all in Z[a_i], hence in the ring of integers of Q(a_i).
In any subring of the algebraic integers which contains the integers
and contains a_i, they are not coprime by the more restrictive
definition of "common non-unit factor".
Quinn
> On the other hand, almost every major medical journal and most
> multi-discipline journals (e.g. Nature) have procedures in place for
> withdrawing papers if they subsequently determine that something was done
> wrong. I think it's more honorable to withdraw a, for example,
plagiarized
> paper than to leave it in the literature.
>
> Norm
There are apples, and then there are oranges. There exists no apple such
that it should be compared to an orange. (Well, except maybe their shape.
;-)
In order to remove the personalities from this discussion, let us discuss
the situation of Joe Bloggs and the publication and subsequent pulling of
his paper on "Methods Towards Solving the Haltertop Problem", published in
"South Liverpuddlian Association and Club's Journal of Advanced
Whatchamacallery" (SLACJAW).
The moment Blogg's paper was published, the work became entitled to the same
due process as any other published mathematical work. This is not a matter
of opinion or aesthetics, but a principle of the Body of Knowledge. It
doesn't matter who (as individuals) likes or dislikes it, who did or did not
like the personality of Bloggs, who did or did not discuss the matter with
Bloggs on a Usenet Newsgroup. In as much as SLACJAW accepted "Methods
Towards" after peer-review, rebuttals, counterproofs, et cetera, must
undergo the same scrutiny before their publication.
In as much as SLACJAW is a peer-reviewed journal, those wishing to make
their issues with "Methods Towards" all called upon to do so following the
same due process that Bloggs' was called upon to undergo. There can be no
shortcuts in refutation, such that Bloggs' solution to the Haltertop Problem
is suddenly yanked from the BoK, unceremoniously. The moment a journal does
this, it becomes suspect, and both Bloggs' *and* those who refute Bloggs are
done a disservice.
--
Quinn
<insert standard disclosures and disclaimers here>
Gerry Myerson
mag...@math.berkeley.edu (Arturo Magidin) wrote:
> Yes: the paper should have been rejected. Yes, its acceptance was an
> aberration. And this needed to be ->addressed<-. I think calling for
> the journal to "retract" the article would be improper (the proper
> time to ask a journal to reconsider publication is ->before<- the
> article is published, as was done for example with the purported
> solution to Hilbert's 10th problem recently, where the journal sent it
> for a new round of refereeing give the feedback it received).
As you note elsewhere in this thread, it was the 16th problem,
not the 10th. The 10th is the one about Diophantine equations,
and Matijasevic settled that one about 30 years ago.
--
Gerry Myerson (ge...@maths.mq.edi.ai) (i -> u for email)
Wayne Brown
JSH's paper from the Southwest Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics:
Dear Mr Brown hi,
Thanks a lot for your input.SWJPAM publishes only correct papers.The
way it was presented to us was not acceptable for publication.We will
advice the author to pursue his ideas and when he has s reult that is
correct he is certainly welcome to resubmit. No further communication
with you on this matter will be answered.
Thanks a lt for your concern.
This is exactly as I received it; no formatting or spelling changes were
made (other than indenting it a couple of spaces on the left margin).
I guess proofreading isn't a big priority for them. And although I didn't
intend to write to them again, it was nice of them to let me know that
I'd be wasting my time trying to communicate with them.
I'm starting to understand why James chose this journal; they seem
perfect for each other.
Robin Chapman
> This is the response I received from my note protesting the removal of
> JSH's paper from the Southwest Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics:
>
> Dear Mr Brown hi,
>
> Thanks a lot for your input.SWJPAM publishes only correct papers.The
> way it was presented to us was not acceptable for publication.We will
> advice the author to pursue his ideas and when he has s reult that is
> correct he is certainly welcome to resubmit. No further communication
> with you on this matter will be answered.
>
> Thanks a lt for your concern.
>
> This is exactly as I received it; no formatting or spelling changes were
> made (other than indenting it a couple of spaces on the left margin).
> I guess proofreading isn't a big priority for them. And although I didn't
> intend to write to them again, it was nice of them to let me know that
> I'd be wasting my time trying to communicate with them.
>
> I'm starting to understand why James chose this journal; they seem
> perfect for each other.
To see this comic's concern for copy editing, see the paper by
J. E. Palomar Tarancon in this "Harris" issue. Figure 1 occupying
most of page 37 is missing. Incidentally before the Harris withdrawal,
the journal had two pages 6: one in the Aamri/El Moutawakil article
and the other in the Harris article.
--
Arturo Magidin
Wayne Brown <fwb...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>This is the response I received from my note protesting the removal of
>JSH's paper from the Southwest Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics:
>
> Dear Mr Brown hi,
>
> Thanks a lot for your input.SWJPAM publishes only correct papers.The
> way it was presented to us was not acceptable for publication.We will
> advice the author to pursue his ideas and when he has s reult that is
> correct he is certainly welcome to resubmit. No further communication
> with you on this matter will be answered.
>
> Thanks a lt for your concern.
>
>This is exactly as I received it; no formatting or spelling changes were
>made (other than indenting it a couple of spaces on the left margin).
>I guess proofreading isn't a big priority for them. And although I didn't
>intend to write to them again, it was nice of them to let me know that
>I'd be wasting my time trying to communicate with them.
>
>I'm starting to understand why James chose this journal; they seem
>perfect for each other.
Well, I just submitted my one page erratum. All very formal, following
their instructions for submissions...
Robin Chapman
> Wayne Brown wrote:
>
>>
>> I'm starting to understand why James chose this journal; they seem
>> perfect for each other.
>
> To see this comic's concern for copy editing, see the paper by
> J. E. Palomar Tarancon in this "Harris" issue. Figure 1 occupying
> most of page 37 is missing. Incidentally before the Harris withdrawal,
> the journal had two pages 6: one in the Aamri/El Moutawakil article
> and the other in the Harris article.
>
Actually the Tarancon paper is correctly rendered in the complete
issue, but not in the individual paper.
Arturo Magidin
Arturo Magidin <mag...@math.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>Well, I just submitted my one page erratum. All very formal, following
>their instructions for submissions...
I received a polite note saying they were "aware of the problem" and that the
paper would be removed.
Wayne Brown
> In article <c7ogo1$2gtp$1...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
> Arturo Magidin <mag...@math.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>
>>Well, I just submitted my one page erratum. All very formal, following
>>their instructions for submissions...
>
> I received a polite note saying they were "aware of the problem" and that the
> paper would be removed.
I glanced over the "Tables of Contents" of a few of their past issues,
and they don't appear even to *have* a "Letters" or "Corrections" page.
It must be nice to make no mistakes... or at least, none that you can't
cover up after the fact...
David C. Ullrich
wrote:
>Arturo Magidin <mag...@math.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>> In article <c7ogo1$2gtp$1...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
>> Arturo Magidin <mag...@math.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>>
>>>Well, I just submitted my one page erratum. All very formal, following
>>>their instructions for submissions...
>>
>> I received a polite note saying they were "aware of the problem" and that the
>> paper would be removed.
>
>I glanced over the "Tables of Contents" of a few of their past issues,
>and they don't appear even to *have* a "Letters" or "Corrections" page.
Neither does the typical math journal. In the rare instances when
people publish corrections it's usually just another paper, not in
a special section.
>It must be nice to make no mistakes... or at least, none that you can't
>cover up after the fact...
************************
David C. Ullrich
Wayne Brown
> On Tue, 11 May 2004 15:48:52 GMT, Wayne Brown <fwb...@bellsouth.net>
> wrote:
>
>>I glanced over the "Tables of Contents" of a few of their past issues,
>>and they don't appear even to *have* a "Letters" or "Corrections" page.
>
> Neither does the typical math journal. In the rare instances when
> people publish corrections it's usually just another paper, not in
> a special section.
What about short comments/corrections (a sentence or two, or maybe a
paragraph) and corrections of typos? Does that require a whole paper,
or do little things like that just get skipped? (My experience with
academic journals is mostly from others disciplines -- archaeology,
papyrology, etc. -- and I've often seen such small corrections printed in
a "Letters to the Editor" or "Errata" column. The only math publications
I usually read are the "Notices of the AMS" and "Bulletin of the AMS,"
not full-fledged journals.)
David C. Ullrich
wrote:
>David C. Ullrich <ull...@math.okstate.edu> wrote:
>> On Tue, 11 May 2004 15:48:52 GMT, Wayne Brown <fwb...@bellsouth.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>I glanced over the "Tables of Contents" of a few of their past issues,
>>>and they don't appear even to *have* a "Letters" or "Corrections" page.
>>
>> Neither does the typical math journal. In the rare instances when
>> people publish corrections it's usually just another paper, not in
>> a special section.
>
>What about short comments/corrections (a sentence or two, or maybe a
>paragraph) and corrections of typos? Does that require a whole paper,
>or do little things like that just get skipped?
I don't recall seeing publications giving nothing but minor
corrections like that. I've seen papers explaning that other
papers were simply wrong in important ways, and I've seen
comments in papers about minor errors in other papers.
Probably I should say that I'm not really the best person to be
making pronouncements on How Things Are Done, because
even before I went on strike I was never nearly as scholarly
as I should have been, in the sense of spending hours in
the library - the comments above are just based on my
limited experience. (Otoh twenty four hours later nobody's
spoken up saying that the typical journal _does_ have an
official Errata section that I just never noticed - usually my
mistakes on sci.math get corrected pretty quickly.)
>(My experience with
>academic journals is mostly from others disciplines -- archaeology,
>papyrology, etc. -- and I've often seen such small corrections printed in
>a "Letters to the Editor" or "Errata" column. The only math publications
>I usually read are the "Notices of the AMS" and "Bulletin of the AMS,"
>not full-fledged journals.)
It's quite possible that journals in other fields are more likely to
have a Letters section, simply because the results in other
fields are more open to debate - someone presents data and
says it supports this or that theory and someone else points
out that there are other interpretations of the data. That sort
of thing isn't going to come up so often in mathematics; if
there's no actual error then the result is _correct_.
The Notices and the Bulletin are certainly not the same as
the typical math research journal in this regard, because they're
more likely to contain articles that _do_ involve matters of
opinion, as opposed to the typical "just the facts" math
paper.
************************
David C. Ullrich
maky m.
why should i do that?
> Doug
maky m.
maky m.
Doug Norris
Because that's what Harris did. Are you reading this thread, or just
taking the chance to get some gratuitous shots in?
And just because you responded three times, that doesn't mean that I'm
going to answer you three times.
Doug
maky m.
so what?
iyo, why should i copy harris actions?
> Are you reading this thread, or just taking the chance
> to get some gratuitous shots in?
yes, i am reading this thread, and in case you are wondering, the
remark i made was prompted by various behaviour patterns you seem to
display in some of your posts in this ng.
> And just because you responded three times, that doesn't mean that I'm
> going to answer you three times.
very cute, haha.
> Doug
Doug Norris
I see - this is very Paul Reubensesque, and you'll participate so long as
you've got someone who's responding. Reading the threads are irrelevant
to you, so long as you can intersperse your unique brand of comedy.
Enjoy the last word, although I won't see it.
Doug
maky m.
fyi, there is no comedy going on here, except possibly from your end.
i just decided to exploit a bit some of your apparent inconsistencies
- that's all.
> Enjoy the last word, although I won't see it.
huh? are you ok?
> Doug
mjc
This is a record for me.
Martin Cohen
Brian Quincy Hutchings
his proof;
what ever
in Hell is the meaning of definition.
in other word,
Doh!
mman...@my-deja.com (maky m.) wrote in message news:<188f56bf.04051...@posting.google.com>...
> fyi, there is no comedy going on here, except possibly from your end.
> i just decided to exploit a bit some of your apparent inconsistencies
> - that's all.
>
> > Enjoy the last word, although I won't see it.
--Give Earth a Trickier Dick Cheeny -- out of office, after gigayears!
http://larouchepub.com/pr/2004/040505missouri_testim.html
http://larouchepub.com/other/2004/3104elect_voting.html
http://larouchepub.com/other/2003/3045dems_dive_SOROS.html
http://www.benfranklinbooks.com/
http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac
http://www.wlym.com/pdf/iclc/HowTheNation.PDF
http://larouchepub.com/other/2003/3048iraq_58_const.html
http://www.rand.org/publications/randreview/issues/rr.12.00/
http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/plates/figs/plate02.html
maky m.
> OK, then. your mission is to assist HSJ in publishing
> his proof;
> what ever
> in Hell is the meaning of definition.
why, do you think, that is a mission i should assume?
> in other word,
> Doh!
>
> mman...@my-deja.com (maky m.) wrote in message news:<188f56bf.04051...@posting.google.com>...
>
> > fyi, there is no comedy going on here, except possibly from your end.
> > i just decided to exploit a bit some of your apparent inconsistencies
> > - that's all.
> >
> > > Enjoy the last word, although I won't see it.
>
> --Give Earth a Trickier Dick Cheeny -- out of office, after gigayears!
> http://larouchepub.com/pr/2004/040505missouri_testim.html
> http://larouchepub.com/other/2004/3104elect_voting.html
> http://larouchepub.com/other/2003/3045dems_dive_SOROS.html
> http://www.benfranklinbooks.com/
> http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac
> http://www.wlym.com/pdf/iclc/HowTheNation.PDF
> http://larouchepub.com/other/2003/3048iraq_58_const.html
> http://www.rand.org/publications/randreview/issues/rr.12.00/
> http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/plates/figs/plate02.html
you ain't the brightest sheep in the herd, are you?
Anthony Natoli
>In article <409c...@news.actrix.gen.nz>,
>William Rex Marshall <nos...@invalid.com> wrote:
>
>>I've also noticed that JSH has just posted on his blogspot, whinging =
>>about his paper being pulled from the (original) site.
>
>I think that's unfair of his first posting. The second one (posted
>Saturday) is certainly more strident, but quite understandable.
>
>Let's face it: in this instance, James was cheated. He was cheated by
>a journal that promised professionalism and peer-review, and did not
>deliver either. He was also cheated when the editor pulled the article
>without notifying him first.
>
>He has certainly been ill-treated. I think that complaining about his
>ill treatment is quite reasonable. The original complaints seemed
>quite pertinent: the journal promissed professionalism, and the
>journal obviously failed to deliver, at ->least<- when it yanked the
>article without explanation and notified him of this after (it is
>unclear what reason they gave ->him<- for doing so, but I'm willing to
>wager it was not a very good one...). The new one seems to be a bit on
>the paranoid side: rather than realizing he was cheated by a journal
>that failed to properly review his paper, he has decided that it was
>properly reviewed, properly accepted, and then yanked out of fear and
>censorship. It is there that the journal has also failed him.
>
>He has a right to complaint. Alas, much of his anger is misdirected.
>
>======================================================================
>"It's not denial. I'm just very selective about
> what I accept as reality."
> --- Calvin ("Calvin and Hobbes")
>======================================================================
>
>Arturo Magidin
>mag...@math.berkeley.edu
NO SYMPATHY FOR JAMES HARRIS!
James Harris was NOT cheated or mistreated - he is a crank and a fraud who knowingly tried to sneak his drivel into mainstream math publications. Lucky for the public and the scientific/mathematics establishment, he was caught (this time).
I totally agree with the journal for yanking Harris' "paper" - it is their journal and their reputation, and leaving the paper on their website and associated with their journal conveys unmerited credibility to James Harris.
Commentators on this newsgroup are being delusional in trying to treat James Harris as though he were like other people who deserve respect and who should be handled with formal errata, corrections, or rebuttals in the journal.
Based on his ignoble history, in at least this instance, James Harris should NOT be treated with egalitarian niceties - he fraudulently submitted his drivel to that journal knowing full well that his specious arguments and conclusions were vetted and demolished on this newsgroup.
He is crank who deserves any and all opprobrium, especially from his abusive behavior and criminal threats on this newsgroup FOR YEARS!
Let him self-publish, and put his money where his foul mouth and addled brain are.
Anthony Natoli
Wayne Brown
>
> I totally agree with the journal for yanking Harris' "paper" - it is their journal and their reputation, and leaving the paper on their website and associated with their journal conveys unmerited credibility to James Harris.
They should have caught it *before* committing to publish it.
Withdrawing it afterwards just adds another mistake: Trying to cover
up their first mistake.
I have no sympathy for Harris, but just because he's involved doesn't
excuse the journal for failing in its responsibilities *twice*.
Brian Quincy Hutchings
seriously, what's the point of interjecting,
if you just can't get the gumption to care,
one way or t'other?
if you don't want to "do Diophantus,"
then you can always doodle in tha margins.
mman...@my-deja.com (maky m.) wrote in message news:<188f56bf.04051...@posting.google.com>...
maky m.
moving backwards?
> seriously, what's the point of interjecting,
> if you just can't get the gumption to care,
> one way or t'other?
correct me if i am wrong; wasn't you the one who interjected in my
exchange with norris?
> if you don't want to "do Diophantus,"
> then you can always doodle in tha margins.
?
educate me.