My OPE & the Euclicidean TSP

[Tom Anderson]

Where did you learn this crap, the back of a cereal box? This is
nonsense. On my shelf at home, for example, I have a copy of /Priestly
on Electricity/ (4th ed., 1775) in which the author discusses at
length many experiments with electrostatics which were carried out
before the time of Newton.

Guess he published the book much later then...

<quote>
Sir Isaac Newton, FRS (pronounced /?nju¢ƒt?n/; 4 January 1643 °© 31
March 1727 [OS: 25 December 1642 °© 20 March 1726])[1] was an English
physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist
and theologian. His Philosophi©° Naturalis Principia Mathematica,
published in 1687, is considered to be the most influential book in
the history of science.
</quote>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton

So Sir Isaac was already dead before the publication you mention.

Didn't you say you have a degree in physics?

And from WHAT country? Oh yeah, wasn't it some place in Great
Britain? Cambridge was it?

Care to explain yourself Mr. "Rotwang"?

Ever heard of William Gilbert? 1544-1603? Last I checked, 1603 is
earlier than 1643, therefore we can conclude that Gilbert's experiments
with electrostatics came before Newton.

And hey, guess what--Gilbert's experiments are described in Priestly's
book.

There's also Roger Bacon, who experimented so hard he died of it - and
that was in 1294, some while before Dr Newton.

There's also one of my favourite quotes, from St Augustine of Hippo, who
was writing so long ago that they only had three digits in the year:

"It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the
sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or
even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of
the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature
of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known
with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience."

Here's a highly entertaining and interesting talk given by an old tutor of
mine, on why he thinks science got started in the 17th century:

http://www.gresham.ac.uk/event.asp?PageId=108&EventId=251

tom

 

[Joshua Cranmer]

I never said that no one else experimented before Newton.

I said that at Cambridge doctors of philosophy, talked before Newton.

He revolutionized the university.

The quote that started this controversy:

Yeah right. Newton revolutionized science itself. During his time
people at universities had thoughtful discussions but didn't
experiment, trying to figure out the world based on what they just
thought was reasonable.

(<
We have by now collected sufficient examples to refute the opinion
claimed in said paragraph.

You mentioned nothing about Cambridge in said post.

 

[Daniele Futtorovic]

Here's a highly entertaining and interesting talk given by an old tutor
of mine, on why he thinks science got started in the 17th century:

Huh? 17th century? As opposed to?

Science started with human civilisation, millennia "ante Christum". I
thought it was generally accepted that modern science started with the
Italian Renaissance -- with the recovering, through centuries of
Christian obscurantism, of Antique science (soon after the Turks took
Constantinople, 1453). 17th century?!

That lecture sounds a bit like puritan chauvinism to me.

 

[JSH]

My web page on debug strategy became top of the Google search for its
title soon after I wrote it, and is still there several years later.

I think I know why. I have a habit of posting a link to it each time I
see a newsgroup question that suggests that the poster does not know how
to approach non-trivial debug. Indeed, I wrote the web page in order to
have an answer for those questions. My postings have a side effect of
creating links to the web page from several well-connected archives of
Java discussions.

My page on how to beat the "lights out" puzzle, where I brute force it
algebraically, is #1 on Google for the search "how to beat lights out",
and I have no idea why.  Google reports that no other pages link to it.

<http://www.tzs.net/lights.html>[/QUOTE]


Which compares to "definition of mathematical proof" where I have #2
behind the Wikipedia, how?

Or even to "Class Viewer" which is a lot more commonly used?

And even "Traveling Salesman Problem" now brings up a page I have at
#65 out of 224,000.

My take on the responses I get is that you have already made up your
mind that you are not only not my equal but that you are superior, so
anything I show which challenges the decision you already made, you
simply rationalize.

I emphasize that the behavior is not even about being equal, but about
your belief that you are superior to me, so in holding on to the lie,
you do a remarkable mental dance, which defies facts to bring what you
have at least equal in some areas to what I have, in your own mind,
and then take superiority in your own mind with other things you think
you have.

Convoluted, but the behavior here is not rational, as most posters
clearly simply dodge "definition of mathematical proof" search result
entirely in their replies!

Oh, so readers should note that Patricia Shanahan was right in there
with the others, with a comparison from her own world as well.

The behavior is about DECIDING superiority to another person, like a
class superiority, and then refusing to accept that the other person
not be your subordinate, like people do in classed societies in the
regular world!

If you think you are upper class then people you see as lower class
are by definition in your mind lower, and there they are supposed to
stay! Beneath you.


James Harris

 

[Joshua Cranmer]

My take on the responses I get is that you have already made up your
mind that you are not only not my equal but that you are superior, so
anything I show which challenges the decision you already made, you
simply rationalize.

What we are trying to point out is this simple fact:
Google results do not really mean anything.

You keep waving the results around as if attaining them is as difficult
as scaling Mt. Everest when we've pointed out that attaining them is
rather... banal. Especially since the places of your work are located in
rather biased locations. As I've said, the same work of notoriety will
come up higher if it were on SourceForge than if it were on a
self-hosted site.

Honestly, if you think any of us care about having the top slots on
Google search results, you're horribly mistaken.

You're really reminding me of the Simpsons episode where Homer bowls a
300...

 

[Tom Anderson]

Huh? 17th century? As opposed to?

Science started with human civilisation, millennia "ante Christum". I
thought it was generally accepted that modern science started with the
Italian Renaissance -- with the recovering, through centuries of
Christian obscurantism, of Antique science (soon after the Turks took
Constantinople, 1453). 17th century?!

Okay, i should have said "really got going", rather than "started". Yes,
there was science being done before that, but it didn't become a
large-scale thing until then.

And don't give me that Renaissance stuff. That's not what i call science!


tom

 

[JSH]

The quote that started this controversy:> Yeah right.  Newton revolutionized science itself.  During his time

(<
We have by now collected sufficient examples to refute the opinion
claimed in said paragraph.

You mentioned nothing about Cambridge in said post.

Well, true, though Newton was at Cambridge at the time, but that is
irrelevant to the point that no, you haven't shown that people at
*universities* experimented.

It is a class issue. Doctors of philosophy, philosophized.

Amateurs have experimented through the ages.

The academics prided themselves on discussion until Newton blew that
out of the water and changed the direction of our world, forever.


James Harris

 

[Daniele Futtorovic]

Okay, i should have said "really got going", rather than "started". Yes,
there was science being done before that, but it didn't become a
large-scale thing until then.

Ah... "really got going". Heh. Seriously though, I suspect you're
confusing science and the bourgeois revolutions (the English one happens
to have occurred in the 17th century). They're very much related, of
course, yet slightly distinct.

And don't give me that Renaissance stuff. That's not what i call
science!

That, my dear Tom, is a terribly unscientific statement.

 

[JSH]

What we are trying to point out is this simple fact:
Google results do not really mean anything.

That is false.

Reality check.

You keep waving the results around as if attaining them is as difficult
as scaling Mt. Everest when we've pointed out that attaining them is
rather... banal. Especially since the places of your work are located in
rather biased locations. As I've said, the same work of notoriety will
come up higher if it were on SourceForge than if it were on a
self-hosted site.

People wonder how arguments can rage on and on, and the simple answer
is that SOMEONE doing the arguing is not in the real world.

That is the only way they can rage on and on.

Now you may think that position with Google search results don't
matter, but those of us in the modern real world, know they do, if
only to find things we want!!!

I'd be rather upset if consistently when I did searches in Google I
got weird crap that shouldn't be in the top 10.

Honestly, if you think any of us care about having the top slots on
Google search results, you're horribly mistaken.

Hey, I'm not sure why my Class Viewer program ranks so highly. But it
is my code, and I have a right to be proud of it, and to bring up nice
things about it, like it coming up #1 if you do a search on "class
viewer" in Google or Yahoo.

Now you can criticize my talking about nice things having to do with
my products all you want, but so what?

You're really reminding me of the Simpsons episode where Homer bowls a
300...

As if your opinion is so important, as in why?

Do you come up highly in any Google search results?

Why do you go on and on as if you were some important person?

I'm suddenly curious, why do you think your opinion matters so much?

Though you may discount search engine rankings, at least I have
SOMETHING to justify directing people to pay attention to me, but
considering your responses--and you have responded a lot--I'm at a
loss as to what gives you the belief that you are someone who needs to
be heard so much?

What gives?


James Harris

 

[Junoexpress]

Which compares to "definition of mathematical proof" where I have #2
behind the Wikipedia, how?

Or even to "Class Viewer" which is a lot more commonly used?

And even "Traveling Salesman Problem" now brings up a page I have at
#65 out of 224,000.


James Harris

OMG, James you're right: If you search under "NPD Math" you come up as
number 3.
Keep up the good work!

M

 

[JSH]

This is why every mathematical "discovery" of yours has turned out to be
wrong.  By refusing to actually test it, you are unable to find the
flaws.  Finding the flaws is a necessary prerequisite to fixing the
flaws.

Note that you don't actually have to write a complete program, or even
any program at all, for this.  Simply working a few small examples by
hand would be sufficient.

Most or all of your work comes down to involving some magic step that
you never explain.  If people read your description, and sit down and
try to actually *DO* whatever it is you've claimed to solve (e.g., they
try to factor an actual number), they hit some step where they are
supposed to pick a number with a certain property, and you've not told
HOW to find that number.  The only ways people come up with for picking
that number end up being equivalent to solving the original problem, and
so your solution reduces to merely being a (sometimes clever) way to
restate the problem, not solve it.

Bottom line: until you are willing to work examples, you will get
nowhere.

I have worked examples with my factoring research. And "rossum" has
verified.

The issue wasn't whether or not my surrogate factoring worked but how
fast it was.

Fact checks reveal that people like you have a contempt for the truth.

There is no doubt that I found another factoring method.

The only issue has been how fast it is, as in whether or not it might
be a threat to public keys.

And, oh wait, I also have my prime counting function, which counts
primes.

Kind of hard to fudge on whether or not that gets the count right, eh?

You people do not realize it but I'm fighting for the survival of my
country and you are trying to destroy it.

History turns on stupidity.

Later, what will you do, say you're sorry? That you just didn't
know? Claim there was no way to be sure?

I have mathematical proof. So my prime counting function is absolute
perfection. It counts perfectly.

And my surrogate factoring, factors.

The issue is not whether or not my research works, but just how
effective it is, and I'm saying there are implications that it could
invalidate public key encryption, overnight, and in doing so, possibly
collapse the global economy.

And then what, you'll say, oops?

Apologize to over 6.6 billion people for what you did?


James Harris

 

[JSH]

Also correct.  All of James' factoring methods that I tested were
slow, i.e. exponential, doing no better than existing exponential
methods.

James' factoring methods worked but they were not fast enough to make
any impact on RSA sized numbers.

I have not tested James' TSP algorithm.  I suggest that James uses
Patricia's test harness, which she kindly provided, to help test his
own code.

rossum

The issue here was a claim by "Tim Smith". I was refuting it.

For those who want a re-cap, I have my own factoring method which I
call surrogate factoring.

The disputes over it are not about whether or not it works but about
how fast it is, and how fast it can be, where the established position
obviously is that it isn't that fast and can't be made to be much
faster.

And the world is being bet on that assessment, I say.

As if it is wrong then you could be living in a world where your
public keys are being broken, easily, day after day, right now.


James Harris

 

[nebulous99]

These comments should not be misconstrued as an invitation to piss off.
It's just that there's rather enough trouble afoot as is. First that
scum NewsMaestro and his sock-puppets, then JSH, then the return of Twisted, his nephew zerg in tow

To the best of my knowledge, zerg is no relation of mine at all. He is
certainly not my nephew; I definitely have none of those.