There is now another question related to this preprint (also closed, which I think is good; but less controversial, or so I think). A comment links to this thread, which initially was a good idea to do I think, but in the long or also rather shorter run it might run counter the original intent of the deletion or ideas of anonymisation. So perhaps one could delete this comment too, in not too much time.
In particular, regarding the issue of visibilty I would like to point out (since sometimes I have the impression this is not so well-known), that this is not only a matter of being 'google resistant' but that the question(s) is/are only two or one (depending on how one counts) and thus at the moment the meta three or two very natural clicks away from the arXiv preprint itself (go to the arXiv page of the article then on the right it says '2 blog links' which are precisely the two MO questions; sorry for not linking there, but since I am not sure whether this would create still one more link here I prefer to avoid it).
]]>So, my advice is: do not underestimate these problems, and make very, very clear the legal footprint that says that the content of their comments is owned by the users and is their own sole responsibility.
]]>Yemon,
I don't think I said anything about the OP's intentions. In #1 above, I specifically said that the responses to the question don't treat the author with respect. I think it was a bad question too, but only because of the responses it unwittingly generated. As I argued in previous threads, there have been similar questions (ones on amenability of Thompson's group F, on the Hanna Neumann Conjecture, and on property T for mapping class groups spring to mind) which were acceptable (in my opinion), mainly because each one admitted a definite answer.
---Henry
]]>Mathematicians are prompt to dismiss cranks and crankiness in general. I think there would be much to gain from understanding them: Why do people become cranks? Why can people lie on the border between crankiness and seriousness? How can we educate them? I think this could contribute to improving education, better accepting the less "normal" people, better guiding them too, helping them, not feeling rejected, not entering destructive dynamics.
I do agree that the effect was to stick up a sign saying "this guy is a crank" (disclosure, I effectively did something like this on g+, but that's a different setting/standard in my book) and so I agree with the deletion of the question, not least because the edits revealed a somewhat, erm, arguable take on the work of famous mathematicians.
In contrast, I think the older question on Thompson F was just about OK since it was framed as a technical "is there an identifiable error in the proof of this claim".
]]>I wouldn't go so far as to say a sentence like "All in all, this is not a serious paper" is offensive or out of line - it's an awkward truth, but it can be better to say these things explicitly than to hint at them and make people read between the lines. On the other hand, I don't see much, if any, value to discussing this on MO. There's just not much to learn: the paper does not look convincing at all, and if the community had any real hope that it solved Goldbach's conjecture, we would all know about it. (I'm not convinced MO would be the right place to discuss this even if the situation were less clear, but that's a different argument.) In this situation, it can be hard to avoid having the discussion come across as ridicule, however it was intended.
I'm also worried about the other aspects of the question:
The original question solicits comments on the mathematician's previous papers. I can sympathize, since I'm curious about that too, but there's just too much potential for this to go awry. I don't think we should be conducting public assessments of anyone's past work on MO.
The question has now been broadened to include discussion of cranks and eccentricity in general. That's a fascinating topic for discussion, but it's not at all a good fit for the question/answer format of MO. Even if it were a better fit, it could be difficult to maintain a respectful, professional tone, but I think the format alone is enough to rule it out for MO.
Today XXXX, from YYYY, posted an article claiming (quite confidently) to have proved Goldbach's 2 primes conjecture.
I only read the beginning and am quite confident that this is nowhere near a proof. But I remember wondering many times about his work, and I remember one professor at the university of Barcelona interested in it. I always thought that his work was at least serious, if not all so (quantum) important as it was made to sound.
Does anybody know about Prof. XXXX, and his work? Does anyone want to opine on the article about Goldbach's conjecture? Please share anything you find relevant.
(I could not think of a better place to ask all this than here, sorry if I should have thought better.)
EDIT: To clarify my intentions: I was mostly curious about XXXX's previous work. I remember seeing the books and wading through them, and seeing his arxiv postings, and I never read his work carefully enough to make myself an idea of its scope or importance, neither did I remember anybody commenting on it, so I was thinking this was the opportunity.
Another remark I would like to make: Mathematicians are prompt to dismiss cranks and crankiness in general. I think there would be much to gain from understanding them: Why do people become cranks? Why can people lie on the border between crankiness and seriousness? How can we educate them? I think this could contribute to improving education, better accepting the less "normal" people, better guiding them too, helping them, not feeling rejected, not entering destructive dynamics.
de Branges is an example that comes to mind, how he did good things, but was also a big burden on the community. Bolyai is another relevant example I believe, he did great things but also had difficulties later in his life. I think Lie started his theory as a generalization of Galois's while this intuition was mostly mistaken, if I understood correctly what J. P. Ramis said recently in a colloquium at Bordeaux. Cantor is another case. Ramanujan's life is a different but relevant example, and Atle Selberg I think criticized the education system for not supporting him -I also believe myself that states should support (most) people who are willing to work hard, even if not on any curriculum that is proposed.
Physicists also provide lots of examples. Einstein I believe is a prime example of a researcher who struggled to motivate himself not pursuing pipe dreams. Dirac is one who seemed to better accept straightforward work, abandon too far-reaching goals, and "accept mathematics" in some sense (which I cannot make very clear now), as was Feynman. They have several famous quotes about the relationship between mathematics and physics. There are also several cultures now within physics, those who do ""straightforward"" developments of well-accepted theories, and those who reject the norm, who are radical, who defend outsider theories. Of course there are also very many cranks in the purest sense of the word.
To lesser extents such tendencies, personality traits, are present in many researchers, people.
But sincerely, through this question, I primarily meant to understand a bit XXXX's previous work. I was less attracted to thinking about how he leant toward crankiness, and I almost never gossip (in the sense of unfocused chat meant essentially to elicit negative emotions, to "vent out"), so if I had discussed that, it would have been with some effort to be productive and accurate.
(With this edit I added the math-philosophy tag.)
EDIT 2: A few references:
Selberg on Ramanujan in this book
About Janos Bolyai
Quotes of Dirac
Quotes of Feynman
A small piece on Einstein's later work
Wiki on de Branges
I think in this book Halmos presents a very interesting perspective on the review process for de Branges's proof of the Bieberbach conjecture.
I can't find a link to Ramis's colloquium. I don't think it should be very hard to find something about Lie's goal to generalize Galois theory.
I may search more references if anybody is interested, or if anyone wants to provide links on serious studies of crankiness in science, please do.
]]>I am very concerned by this question, and also by the responses we are seeing. A year or so ago, we discussed whether or not MO should be used to discuss the merits of recent preprints here and also here. Various views were expressed, but I think there was general agreement that MO is not an appropriate venue to discuss recent preprints in detail and that authors should be treated with respect.
Unfortunately, the responses to 104695 violate both these principles; in particular, the author has been ridiculed. I am very concerned about what this means for the culture of MO.
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