Newsgroup sci.logic 18906

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Jukka Korpela  wrote:
} 
} If this kind of "news" had any truth in them,
} and especially if they were unquestionable, we would certainly have
} read about them in reputable scientific magazines - which would really
} struggle for the right to publish such revolutionary reports before
} their competitors.
 In any case, the whole thing is documented on the web, including 
 microscopic analysis of the so-called bone fragments. 
ian@knowledge.co.uk (Ian Tresman) writes:
>
>You're joking. "In 1906, more than two years after the Wrights had
>first flown, Scientific American carried an article ridiculing the
>'alleged' flights... 
 Despite their claims to the contrary, Dayton and Kitty Hawk *were* 
 remote in 1906, and the writers in New York could not read the 
 local newspaper accounts of the flights via the WWW.  I might add 
 that if you have ever read the Scientific American from that era 
 you would find it to be somewhat below Popular Science in its 
 approach to the subject. 
-- 
 James A. Carr        |  "The half of knowledge is knowing
    http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/       |  where to find knowledge" - Anon. 
 Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst.  |  Motto over the entrance to Dodd 
 Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306    |  Hall, former library at FSCW. 

I wrote yesterday:
|webb@deakin.edu.au (Geoff Webb) wrote:
|> [Heading] Other Theoretical Objections to the Occam Thesis
|> [snip]
|> On the philosophical front, to summarize Bunge [1963], the 
|> complexity of a theory (classifier) depends entirely upon the 
|> language in which it is encoded. To claim that the 
|> acceptability of a theory depends upon the language in which 
|> it happens to be expressed appears indefensible. 
|
|This is essentially incorrect. See Li and Vitanyi's *An 
|Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and It's Applications* p. 
|90 The Invariance Theorem.  Complexity depends in part on its 
|language up to a fixed constant which becomes negligible beyond 
|a certain degree of overall language and description 
|complexity.
Upon re-reading, I have provided support at this point for 
Geoff Webb's position rather than opposed it and note my error
in misunderstanding his meaning.
Neil Nelson

Jim Carr wrote:
> 
> Jukka Korpela  wrote:
> }
> } If this kind of "news" had any truth in them,
> } and especially if they were unquestionable, we would certainly have
> } read about them in reputable scientific magazines - which would really
> } struggle for the right to publish such revolutionary reports before
> } their competitors.
> 
>  In any case, the whole thing is documented on the web, including
>  microscopic analysis of the so-called bone fragments.
> 
> ian@knowledge.co.uk (Ian Tresman) writes:
> >
> >You're joking. "In 1906, more than two years after the Wrights had
> >first flown, Scientific American carried an article ridiculing the
> >'alleged' flights...
> 
>  Despite their claims to the contrary, Dayton and Kitty Hawk *were*
>  remote in 1906, and the writers in New York could not read the
>  local newspaper accounts of the flights via the WWW.  I might add
>  that if you have ever read the Scientific American from that era
>  you would find it to be somewhat below Popular Science in its
>  approach to the subject.
> 
> --
>  James A. Carr        |  "The half of knowledge is knowing
>     http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/       |  where to find knowledge" - Anon.
>  Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst.  |  Motto over the entrance to Dodd
>  Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306    |  Hall, former library at FSCW.
I saw something on TV just the other night that said that the Wright 
brothers in fact did not seek wide publicity for their first flight.  
They waited several years, until they had improved their machines enough 
to provide really impressive (more than an hour) flight times.  After 
that they started manufacturing them for sale.
Bill Gill

The logical way to create a time machine is to accually cause one to
create itself.  Simply look in you filing cabinet under the heading of
Time machine.  There you will find all the plans you need to build a
time machine.  Just make sure that when you have made it, go back in
time five minutes before you looked into your filing cabinet and deposit
the plans under a heading called Time machine.

kenneth paul collins  writes:
  >I stand on what I've posted. I was using "Copernicanism" as a 
  >reference to heliocentricism, which Kepler and Newton worked through 
  >quite nicely.
  Heliocentrism, alas, didn't make the work of following epicycles (in
the model presented by Copernicus) any simpler. Kepler's laws are
another matter altogether.

kenneth paul collins  writes:
  >I stand on what I've posted. I was using "Copernicanism" as a 
  >reference to heliocentricism, which Kepler and Newton worked through 
  >quite nicely.
  Heliocentrism, alas, didn't make the work of following epicycles (in
the model presented by Copernicus) any simpler. Kepler's laws are
another matter altogether.

Le Compte de Beaudrap wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 8 Nov 1996, kenneth paul collins wrote:
[snip irrelevant stuff]
> > _____________________________________________________
> > People hate because they fear, and they fear because
> > they do not understand, and they do not understand
> > because hating is less work than understanding.
> >
> --- The exception being, of course, those who hate not understanding.
No... the folks who hate not understanding do the work that 
understanding requires, so they need not fear, so they need not hate. 
Doing the work that understanding requires enables one to choose Love.
ken collins

kenneth paul collins wrote:
> Following a long quote from the _First Book of the De Revolutionibus_,
> Thomas Kuhn, in his _The Copernican Revolution_, [...]
The quoted text is from pp149-150. Sorry. ken collins

Torkel Franzen wrote:
> 
> kenneth paul collins  writes:
> 
>   >I stand on what I've posted. I was using "Copernicanism" as a
>   >reference to heliocentricism, which Kepler and Newton worked through
>   >quite nicely.
> 
>   Heliocentrism, alas, didn't make the work of following epicycles (in
> the model presented by Copernicus) any simpler. Kepler's laws are
> another matter altogether.
There are no epicycles in the Copernican view. Indeed, Copernicus argued 
in favor of the moving-Earth, heliocentric view precisely on the basis of 
its being free of epicycles:
Following a long quote from the _First Book of the De Revolutionibus_, 
Thomas Kuhn, in his _The Copernican Revolution_, states, "Copernicus is 
here pointing to the immediate advantage for astronomers of the concept of 
a moving earth. If the earth moves in an orbital circle around the center 
as well as spinning on its axis, then, at least qualitatively, the 
retrograde motions and the different times required for a planet's 
successive journeys around the ecliptic can be explained without the use 
of epicycles."
Of course, the work of Copernicus built upon existing conceptualizations, 
and was refined by later workers. The same is true of the work of both 
Newton and Einstein. Such refinment is a feature of the extended 
development of all revolutionary conceptualizations.
The main mathematical difference between the Ptolemaic and Copernican 
views was that, in the latter, it was recognized that the retrograde 
motions that, in the Earth-centered view, "necessitated" resorting to 
epicycles within epicycles, were =only= apparent, and not Physically-Real 
motions. I stand on what I posted. You are not only picking nits, 
you're manufacturing them? ken collins
_____________________________________________________
People hate because they fear, and they fear because
they do not understand, and they do not understand 
because hating is less work than understanding.

Geoff Webb wrote:
> I believe that this work has wider interest in that it provides
> some empirical support for philosophical objections to Occam's razor,
> such as those of Mario Bunge (The Myth of Simplicity, Prentice-Hall, 1963).
I have read your article, and my disagreement continues. Here are some points 
upon which that disagreement is founded:
Quoting from the section of your paper entitled, "Other Theoretical Objections 
to the Occam Thesis"
"However, even if the world is intrinsically simple, there is no reason why 
that simplicity should correspond to syntactic simplicity in an arbitrary 
language."
If one treats "language" as an entity that's disconnected from the 
information-processing dynamics that are inherent in human nervous systems, 
one simultaneously redefines what Occam's razor is. My view is dependent upon 
maintaining the connection between CNS and language, and when this is done, 
it's verifiably the case that all language is ordered around the minimization 
of energy consumption within CNSs. So, given the connection to CNS function, 
there is a reason "why that simplicity should correspond to syntactic 
simplicity in an arbitrary language".
I am arguing from the perspective developed in an unpublished document, "On 
the Automation of Knowing within Central Nervous Systems" (AoK), which I am 
circulating in hypertext form. The doc presently runs only on MSDOS, Win3.1, 
and Win95 machines. I can email you a copy if you have a machine that can run 
the doc.
My position is that Occam's razor follows from the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics 
which, it can be demonstrated, =requires= natural processes to occur in 
Least-Action ways. Least Action is the physical embodiment of simplicity.
One way in which my position falls short of refuting the position you take in 
your paper is that my position is with respect to choosing between existing 
alternatives. It can be extended to predict with respect to 
hypothetical alternatives, but such extension is accomplished via WDB2T, not 
resort to "Occam's razor". I do see such as within the realm of what Occam had 
in mind, but rather than speculate with respect to such, I take things down to 
WDB2T.
So I stand on what I've posted. ken collins
_____________________________________________________
People hate because they fear, and they fear because
they do not understand, and they do not understand 
because hating is less work than understanding.

Le Compte de Beaudrap wrote:
> 
> On 7 Nov 1996, Archimedes Plutonium wrote:
> 
> > In article <327FD551.4A31@postoffice.worldnet.att.net>
> > kenneth paul collins  writes:
> >
> > > Please, what are "p-adics"?
[Falsely attributed stuff snipped]
Kindly, keep straight what folks post. ken collins
_____________________________________________________
People hate because they fear, and they fear because
they do not understand, and they do not understand 
because hating is less work than understanding.

In article 
darla@accessone.com (Darla) writes:
> Sweetie---
> 
> You cannot judge the importance or the value of a thing by the number and
> weight of the tools needed to produce or complete it.  It takes a lot of
> heavy equipment to haul garbage, but only a heart to fall in love.  And
> which is the greater endeavor? Which has more directly enhanced the lives
> of men and the survival of the planet?
> 
> By the way...without logic to show man how to think and reason, the
> chemists and physicists would be sitting around looking at one another
> wondering how to begin.
> 
> 
> Darla
  And you believe that the atoms in a tool such as a hammer knows that
they are tool atoms. And that atoms in something that you yourself do
not think is a tool are nontool atoms. That atoms somehow talk to each
other and say "sweetie, we are tool atoms".
   You have failed to see my point and my message. The point is, again,
that if you seek to understand the world around you and you do so by
only pen and paper on your laziness and talking with someone such as a
math proof, that understanding can never be as important as another
person who draws into his quest for understanding of the world by
encompassing vast number and large part of his surroundings. Everytime
the double slit experiment is performed, it draws in so much more of
the world than someone who is proving FLT with pen and paper.
  If your son spends 4 years at a school pushing pen and paper, no
matter how cute and heavy. That is never worth the same son who
afterwards spends 4 years in the actual work a day world of the
profession that he studied for in his 4 years of pen and paper
preparing him for. You can say that mathematics, all of it is a phsyics
warm-up experiment. Math people like to tell you that once a math proof
is given , then it is proved in eternity. Physicists are not so
arrogant and have a better mind, for they tell you that a physics
experiment can be falsified. There might have been something overlooked
and perhaps in the case of the 1003 experiment of the same test it is
found that the experiment was wrong. But this is the case for
mathematics also when you accept that a mathematics proof is merely a
physics experiment that uses little physics equipment or apparatuses,
usually only pen and paper.
  My advice to you is to open your mind. Recognize that there are
people in the world who are thousands of times smarter than you and
that when you read my posts, don't jump the gun and think that you are
correct and I am wrong. Say to yourself, I am reading AP and I can
learn something new today.

In article 
Dan Razvan Ghica  writes:
> I don't really see how the way we write a number is important. If
> "...9998" and "-2" are equivalent I would naively go for the "-2" notation
> just because it lacks the confusing "..." at the left end. Just like I
> prefer "2.0" to "1.999...". But I might be wrong. 
> 
  There is more to a number than how it is written. And I should have
not thrown in that equivalency for I opened a huge can of worms. For me
to talk about 'equality' and 'equivalency' there distinction and
perhaps there illusion would be a whole subject in itself. The Real
Numbers 2.0... and 1.999... are one and the same and are equal. There
is no difference between 2.00... and Real two and 1.999... and the
Whole Real after 1.00... This is a matter of writing a number. But
equivalency is much different because we do not say 1/2 is equal to
2/4. We know that if you have a team composed of 1 male and 1 female
and another team of 2 males and 2 females, we know those are not the
same thing.
  And here is another case where physics overpowers mathematics. In
physics we can have equality for photons or the more general bosons are
indistinguishable. In fact, bosons are the only pieces of reality that
are indistinguishable and everything else is distinguishable. And so ,
in the future the mathematicians will eventually come around to basing
their definition, and their entire understanding of equality and
equivalency-- all around boson and fermion characteristics. But this
other triumph of phsyics over mathematics will wait. First of
importance is for physics to clear out the dead wood of Finite Integers
and replace them with Infinite Integers (p-adics).
> It would be interesting if Archimedes Plutonium would steer his postings
> away from anti-mathematical-establishment conspiration-theory-esque
> rantings and tell us more about these mysterious p-adics, their fine
> properties and their potential impact on life from mathematics and physics
> to, say, accounting. 
> 
  To you and most everyone reading my Vietmath posts will look at them
as anti math establishment with touches of hollering of conspiracy. I
have never admired conspiracy theories. 
  To the world 50 years from now, they will see that I did what I had
to do. And as they read my posts they will be on my side, even 110%
percent. History is kind to those who could see the truth 50 years in
advance, and history is very unkind to those who thwarted and ignored.
Remember those two English mathematicians that ignored Ramanujan. And
Hardy would have been a mere footnote if not for Ramanujan. But those
two darkhorses are now written into the black pages of history. 
  Every prominent mathematician out there now who ignores me will be
written off and into the dark pages of history. Andy Wiles, Gerd
Faltings, Paul Erdos will be written into the comic book history of
mathematics, simply because they ignored me.
> I need more background before I start fighting the VietMath war.
> 
  I do not have time for a dialogue concerning p-adics. I have often
posted in the past that a Schaum's type of outline for elementary
p-adics should be written. Some workbook that even a good High School
student can operate on p-adics. When the world recognizes that physics
is written in p-adics and not the fictional Finite Integers then
virtually all mathematics textbooks become instantly obsolete. And book
publishers will be forced to write elementary p-adics books and
outlines.
  When p-adics replaces finite integers there will have to be a meeting
all over the world in education to decide what year to introduce
p-adics to math majors. Everyone who is not majoring in physics or
mathematics can use the false integers of finite because they never
need to worry about any integer that does not repeat in zeros leftward.
Just like anyone not wanting to major in physics can get by amiably
with Newtonian Mechanics.
> Regards,
> DRG
> 
Sorry, I do not have the time for a p-adic dialogue. About the best I
can do is to repost my own personal dialogue on p-adics that occurred
on the Net in 1993-1994. And come to think of it, I ought to keep that
dialogue in my website and to the questions of "let's have a p-adic
dialogue" I can refer the reader to a specific web page.
  The mathematics literature even up to this date, is horribly lacking
in any elementary discussions of p-adics, what they are, how to
multiply and divide with them. There strange characteristics. Why this
lack? The answer is that noone but me ever thought they were anything
more than a extension. I am the first to realize that they are the
Naturals themselves, and that the Finite Integers were a field of
ghosts, or angels that fit on the end of a needle.
> --
>  ghica@qucis.queensu.ca **** http://www.qucis.queensu.ca/home/ghica/info.html
> Many vast and imposing philosophies are based on stupid and trivial confusions.
>                                                                Bertrand Russell

In article <56b0t4$4ed@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>
Archimedes.Plutonium@dartmouth.edu (Archimedes Plutonium) writes:
>   My advice to you is to open your mind. Recognize that there are
> people in the world who are thousands of times smarter than you and
> that when you read my posts, don't jump the gun and think that you are
> correct and I am wrong. Say to yourself, I am reading AP and I can
> learn something new today.
We are feeling more humble then usual tonight %^)

In article  Le Compte de
Beaudrap  writes:
>        Now why didn't I think of this? Arch, would it be possible to 
> please talk more about p-adics and less about how they will cause the 
> collapse of mathematics? Serious request, here: I don't mean to be snide 
> or sarcastic. Tell us about them.
>
> Niel de Beaudrap
Sorry but my agenda is so loaded that I even parcel out my
entertainment time. I even told a pretty redhead (potential date) that
my schedule was completely full until next May for me to even consider.
 I just do not have the time to dialogue. What I can do is repost my
old 1993-1994 dialogue. Some 1,000 posts on p-adics a dialogue which
had many math experts talking about p-adics. If you want I can post
about 5 dialogues to some of these VietMath War posts. I think this may
be a good idea.
If you have ever done a patent, you would know that I have no time for
a dialogue. I have a patent due at the end of Dec 96. Then another due
in April 97. Then another due midyear 97 and another due in November
97. Some are over 100 pages long. A dialogue on p-adics is far down on
my list of priorities. Besides what would a "great dialogue" on p-adics
accomplish for me? That I learn some more about p-adics that I did not
already know, when the major theme is that the p-adics are the Natural
numbers. 
No, genius is mostly knowing your priorities. Besides, how do I know
that your questions is genuine. I suspect people who want to get me
into a dialogue which has no direction in sight. I ask myself are these
Socratic method persons who would fish for a dialogue sucker? Are they
really genuine in their questions or are they panning for being correct
and me being shown wrong. I have seen a few  on the Net who chase after
posters and try to engage them in some dull, stultifying dialogue. 
Something about their psychology that they need a Socratic dialogue.
Perhaps they stay awake at night dreaming of scoring a victory on the
Net over someone in a Socratic dialogue and the Net is their avenue of
accomplishing this rum-dummy effort. I usually can smell people out
before they even utter their first rum dummy lines.
  I am not accusing you Niel of any rum. But I notice no technical talk
of p-adics on your part. The best I can do is to repost my 1993-1994
dialogue on p-adics under a Vietmath title.

In article  Le Compte de
Beaudrap  writes:
>
>        As soon as chemistry stopped being alchemy, it was a branch of 
>physics. It happened in the late 19th, not the early 20th, century. To 
>quote Rutherford: "All science is either physics or stamp collecting."
>That was from long before the full glory of Quantum Physics.
>
  I'll buy that. I think most chemists innately know that they are a
specialized area of physics. 
>
>        As well, how can physics ever subsume math!? That's impossible! 
>While findings in physics may force math to change, it is the laws of 
>physics that are expressed in math, NOT the laws of math expressed in 
>physics. I defy you to, using Maxwell's equations, prove that 1+1=2, 
>without depending on the proof asked for to accomplish it.
>
 Nay, your above is your accepted brainwash. Look, try to imagine a
world in which it has no indivisible parts-- no atoms. This is very
difficult and shows the degree of assumptions people carry with them.
You see, the only reason we have numbers in the first place is because
atoms are numerous.
 To show your above beliefs are wrong, I need not prove via Maxwell
Equations that 1+1 = 2. All I need to show you and the myriad others is
to consider this.
Consider humans inside of the 5f6 establishing a mathematics and they
come to the moment in history when they seek that special number that
relates how many diameters make a circle. We know that special number
to be 3.14.... Could that number be different to another advanced
lifeform somewhere else in the universe? The answer is yes. The answer
is that life, intelligent life can have different pi depending on where
that advanced life is located.
  You see, Niel, to your education and brainwashing you think that pi
is an absolute.
  But if you consider that pi and e come from the physical world itself
and that we discover pi as 3.14... in this corner of the universe but
that pi and e can change and have been different in the past and will
be different in the future. 
  You see, 5f6 of 231 plutonium has in the collapsed waveform
(collapsed wavefunction reverts to rational numbers and uncollapsed are
transcendental numbers) . But the diameter to the circumference of 5f6
of plutonium is 22 subshells divided by 7 shells. The girth, the
circumference of plutonium is 22 subshells inside of a diameter a 7
shells.
  The reason all math people find that the ratio of circumference to
diameter is a number in rational form of 22/7 and for e , 19/7  (19
occupied* subshells in 7 shells) is because the Maker of everything has
a belt, a girth of 22, and occupied 19 subshells in 7 shells.
  Every mathematician before me has never answered why 3.14... (whether
rational or transcendental form) has ever answered why these two
numbers. Why not a whole 3 and a whole 2. The answer could never be
given by math people but the answer has to be given by the "experience
of the whole world". Physics has to answer why pi is 3.14... and not 3
and why e is 2.71... and not 2 or 2.50...
  Once physics has answered that, then it implies that in the future
when the universe is a different atom totality such as a element 150,
then the pi and e for those advanced lifeforms inside that element 150
outer electron space, their pi and e will be different from our pi and
e inside the 5f6 of plutonium.
  Physics is tops, is pinnacle and all other subjects are dressing for
physics.
>        If physics predicts a mathematical property, THEN has physics 
>subsumed math. You state that physics CONTRADICTS math, or shows that 
>math is insufficient; that means that the laws of mathematics do not form 
>a proper base as defined.
>
   You got that partially correct. My attack on mathematics goes like
this.
  If a branch of physics or even a tiny spot of physics finds p-adics
essential. Essential and where the Finite Integers are inadequate. What
that discovery means is that Finite Integers as counting numbers were
as fake, as a mere crude approximation of what the genuine and true
integers were. This usurpment is similar to the usurping of Newtonian
Mechanics by Quantum Mechanics.
  Thus my attack on mathematics is merely a search for physics , some
spot in physics where p-adics are essential and where Finite Integers
just fail to describe that physics. My guess is that the Quantum Hall
Effect numbers are p-adic numbers and that they look strange and
bizarre because they are seen as rational numbers and Finite Integers.
But if they are seen as just 7-adics and that they are 1,2,3,4,.... in
7-adics but oddball numbers otherwise. Well, physics subsumes
mathematics, swallows it forevermore in that one experiment.
>
>
>        Excuse me, but are you not also being a mathematician in 
>contributing to mathematics? (Are you not also acting like a High Priest 
>impersonator by writing this article? "The end of the finite integers is
>a'comin, and all of the unbeleivin' mathematicians of the world will be 
>thrown into the fires of hell!")
   Yes I am a mathematician when it is proved that physics is written
in p-adics and not Finite Integers. I have to come down hard on math
people to let them know. It was not by coincidence that I used the
Vietnam war to run a harangue on the math community. Consider: how far
would the Vietnam war protestors have gotten if they wrote to the
president Dear LBJ, please stop the Vietnam war. Those protesters did
the best thing possible to turn the attitude of that war. I have 2
proofs of the Riemann Hypothesis. If my name was Andy Wiles and had
control of Annals of Mathematics the way Andy has control of that
magazine, then the world would have had 2 accepted proofs of the
Riemann Hypothesis in 1993. 
   I can no longer ask "please Mr. Edwards will you look at my 2 proofs
of the Riemann Hypothesis". Instead I have to call out these buffoons
and wait for my day in the sun. When my day comes then I will change
the crooked and self-serving way that mathematics is run.
>
>        As well, where does the impression of mathematicians feeling 
>superior to scientists arise? I never heard of this, and many 
>mathematicians were also physicists. Were you scared by a 
>mathematician in your childhood?
>
  It is obvious, just look at all the replies to my saying that
mathematics is a subdepartment of physics. Only I have supported this
claim and all the other posts have opposed this claim. Even you Niel
are opposed to this claim. And the reason you are opposed, I can only
guess is that everyone has read in this arrogant books that math is
great and tops. But now in a newer day where there is an Atom Totality
theory, that older claim of math is tops really has not much support. 
>        As an aside, I take opposition to your calling me a birdbrain, 
>despite the fact that I haven't  breathed a word against p-adics 
>themselves yet. And until I have sufficient reason, I won't.
>
>
  I do that as a price that the lethargic math community will pay. The
day when p-adics are found essential in physics and that Naturals =
p-adics is confirmed then the math people who had responsibility to
consider Naturals = p-adics but who ignored it, heckled it, jeered it.
Well, then they pay the price for their obtuseness and their ignoring
it. I want accountability in mathematics and the sciences. In the old
days we were not as open nor had free access to the press and world as
we do with the Internet. And so accountability now plays a major role
in science and math.
  If I am found wrong and that the p-adics are not the Naturals and
that no place in physics are p-adics essential, then I pay the price
and eat crow and be historically blacklisted or made a clown of. But I
believe I am correct and if it takes calling Gerd Faltings a worthless
math birdbrain that he may go into action and consider that equation of
Naturals = INfinite Integers, and that he will go down into infamy in 
math history if I am found correct. Then it was good that I put a
bunsen burner under his stupid and lazy ass.
>
>        Maybe. As Quantum Physics has "classical" and "renormalised" 
>versions of theories, so may mathematics under p-adics. (What does 
>"p-adic" stand for, anyway? Just curious.)
>
  I have often stated that mathematics has rarely had any revolutions.
About the only real revolution was the introduction of nonEuclidean
geometries. But mathematics is ripe for a real, apple cart upsetting
revolution. A revolution that will make obsolete almost all the math
textbooks of present. Such a revolution would be Naturals = p-adics =
Infinite INtegers. And I have likened that revolution to the Quantum
physics revolution over the old Newtonian Mechanics. I have often
implied that Naturals = Finite Integers is Newtonian Mechanics and that
Naturals = Infinite Integers is the Quantum Mechanics of mathematics.
>
>        Firstly, I agree that physics EXPERIMENTS have more basis in 
>reality than math: math is a formal system which seems to work, and 
>physics experiments are measurements of reality itself. However, 
>THEORETICAL physics depends on math intimately. Physics theory without 
>math boils down to: "light is very very very very fast."
>
  All theoretical phsyics is hogwash unless it has experiments behind
it. And thanks for you above for the bells are ringing. Mathematics =
Theoretical Physics which has no experimental evidence.  Pure
theoretical physics is phsyics experiments that use only pen and paper.
>        Secondly, how did you "derive" (for lack of a better word) 
>p-adics? Are p-adics a consequence of observation, as the existance of
>the neucleus of an atom is? Or are p-adics the only way math and physics 
>able to coexist? If the latter, I submit that you have found a math that 
>is better for a basis of physics. P-adics are a part of physics (as 
>opposed to math) IF AND ONLY IF p-adics exist by the observations of 
>physics. Have you observed a 2 today? Not two objects, not ink in the 
>symbolic representation of "2", but an actual 2? No such thing exists, 
>one cannot "observe" a number, nor can one observe a class of numbers. 
>Thusly, p-adics are a part of MATH, NOT PHYSICS.
>
  If this world had no atoms , but something else, something continuous
perhaps then mathematics created in such a world would be numberless
and be based on whatever that stuff of that universe was.
  I did not found p-adics, Kurt Hensel did that at the turn of the 20th
century. I independantly discovered Infinite Integers and then later
found out that p-adics cover the Infinite Integers. This often happens
in science or math. That you work on something and think you have
discovered something totally new and find out that someone else worked
it out 100 years earlier than you.
>
>
>        Ah, so then you did not observe a p-adic, you merely concluded 
>that to use a p-adic instead of a finite integer solved your problems. 
>Your problems of reconciliation of THEORETICAL PHYSICS with EXPERIMENTAL 
>PHYSICS, not PHYSICS with MATH. By improving math, you makephysics 
>consistent. If p-adics are indeed an improvement, I applaud your efforts.
>However, in trying to convince (convert?) others to see things your way, 
>you have begun to sound more like a fanatical Nazi than a rational 
>philosopher of any type.
>
>        P-adics are math. New math, math brought about due to problems in
>physics, but math nonetheless. By insulting math, you insult yourself. 
>Whether you are aware of it or not, you are a mathematician, and are 
>trying to bring about a mathematical, and not a physical, revolution. 
>Physics will not envelop math, as you envision: math will not be whipped, 
>kiss physics' feet, or be put into concentration camps. Theoretical 
>physics will still be the middle man between experimental physics and 
>math, trying to predict the former by use of the latter. It will merely 
>be the first time that an inadequacy in physics will necessitate a change 
>in math, is all, just as inadequacies have necessitated better 
>experimental procedures all these centuries.
>
>        I put it to you that you are either a physicist who has been 
>either abused, teased, or put down by mathematical peers, and that you 
>are trying to insult them by saying that physics is infinitely superior 
>to math. In that, you are gravely mistaken. All quests for truth are 
>equally valid, and while some may be based on others (ie, just as PHYSICS 
>is based on MATH and observation), all searches for truth are noble, and 
>light up our world with their insights.
>
  No, I have my work and ideas before the eyes of the world. If any of
my theories are found correct, such as the Atom Totality, then all of
those that ignored or denied or the many that persecuted me will pay
their price.
  The Net has changed the playing field of science in publishing. No
longer can a professor from Princeton who has his hand on the journals
gets published. If Wiles is awarded the Wolfskehl prize for FLT and 10
or 50 years later my Naturals = P-adics is finally admitted as true and
that Wiles FLT was another scam just as Kempe's scam of the 4 - Color
Mapping. Well, it was all on record and I ask that Wiles and the
Goettingen Academy of Sciences go down in history , in infamy , as the
darkhorse persecutors and con-artists and buffoons that they were.
   The way we publish science and math must change. The old clubhouse,
inner circle are held accountable if they ignore a genius of the
subject.
>        This has been my humble opinion, amplified by way of reaction to 
>extreme comments about math. (Newton's 3rd law: For every action, there 
>is an equal but opposite reaction...a qualitative law of physics, which 
>needs math to be of any concrete use.) I neither oppose nor promote 
>p-adics, but I do oppose the way that the promoter(s) of p-adics seem to 
>go to great lengths put math down, especially with shock tactics like 
>"Physics Envelops Math" and "Math forced to grub, grub, grub". Let 
>us discuss things, and think things out, like reasoning beings: That's Why 
>God Gave Us Brains.
>
>        Math a branch of Physics? IMHO, impossible. P-adics valid? No 
>comment. After all, I haven't enough of a basis to have an opinion. If 
>only all people were like that, all the time...
>
  You really have not been open minded in your above.
>
>Niel de Beaudrap
 Math cannot even begin to describe quantum mechanics in its strange
logic, in its breaking of causality. Even a piece of biology is bigger
than is the whole subject of mathematics. Take the human brain and
mind, it fits mathematics into a tiny corner of that biological brain,
and yet the brain is just a composition of atoms and what the atoms do
is the subject of physics, is it not.
  So try to be a little more open minded

In article <56b965$27f@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>
Archimedes.Plutonium@dartmouth.edu (Archimedes Plutonium) writes:
> 
>  Math cannot even begin to describe quantum mechanics
i'm guessing your guess is a bad one 
> in its strange
> logic, in its breaking of causality. Even a piece of biology is bigger
> than is the whole subject of mathematics.
Were you raped by a bunch of Mathematicians late in life ?

> Dear sir or madam,
> 
> I'm a college student interested in the laws of logic.  Just the basics. 
> Perhaps stuff that some of the ancient philosophers recognized (not created). 
> Could you tell me a good resource that would give me the basics?  And perhaps
> where to look if I need more information?
> 
> Examples of stuff that I'm looking for would be:
> 	-venn diagram
> 	-informal fallacies
> 	-truth tables
> 	-etc.
> 
> Much appreciated,
> 
> Jonathan Stamberg
> 
> stambej8598@uni.edu
I think, the book of Daniel Bonevac, 
"The Art and Science of Logic" would 
be helpful for you.
Good luck,
Tomasz Polacik
polacik@us.edu.pl

mlerma@sp5-4.ma.utexas.edu (Miguel Lerma) writes:
> 
> I am interested in counting zeros of a expression of the form
> 
>                                    p(x) ln(x) + q(x)
>                             f(x) = -----------------
>                                           r(x)
> 
> in an interval (a,b) (0 In particular it could be very useful to have some sort of 
>"Sturm method" suitable for expressions of the form P(x,log(x)), 
> where P(x,y) is a bivariate polynomial. Is there anything like that?
Have a look at Khovanskii's work and the related work on decision 
procedures for real exponential fields (generalizations of Tarski's 
classical decision procedure for the first order theory of the reals,
and its subsequent effectivization by Collins in his Cylindrical 
Algebraic Decomposition (CAD) algorithm). Following are some
entry points into related literature.
-Bill Dubuque
van den Dries, L. et. al.  The elementary theory of restricted analytic
fields with exponentiation, Annals of Math. 140 (1994) 183-205.
van den Dries, L.  Alfred Tarski's elimination theory for real closed
fields, Jnl. Symbolic Logic 53 #1 (1988) 7-19.
van den Dries, L.  A generalization of the Tarski-Seidenberg theorem,
and some nondefinability results, Bull. AMS 15 #2 (1986) 189-193.
van den Dries, L.  Tarski's problem and Pfaffian functions,
Logic Colloquium '84 (J.B. Paris ed.) 59-90.
Khovanskii, A. G.  Fewmonomials and Pfaff manifolds, Proc's of 
Int'l Congress of Mathematicians 1983, 549-564.
Miller, C.  Infinite differentiability in polynomial bounded o-minimal
structures, Proc's AMS 123 #8 (1995) 2551-2555.
Pasini, Leonardo; Marchi, Carla.  Exponentially and logarithmically 
closed Hardy fields in several variables. 
J. Pure Appl. Algebra (1989), no. 3, 279-283.
Richardson, D.  Wu's method and the Khovanskii finiteness theorem,
Jnl. Symbolic Computation 12 (1991) 127-141.
Richardson, D.  A zero structure theorem for exponential polynomials,
Proc. ISSAC '93 144-151.
Wolter, H.  Consequences of Schanuel's condition for zeros of 
exponential terms, Math. Logic Quarterly, 39 (1993) 559-565.

                           ATAL-97 CALL FOR PAPERS
                    The Fourth International Workshop on
             Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL)
                        Providence, Rhode Island, USA
                              July 24-26, 1997
          http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/faculty/mpsingh/activities/atal/
Intelligent agents are one of the most important developments in computer
science in the 1990s. Agents are of interest in many important application
areas, ranging from human-computer interaction to industrial process
control. The ATAL workshop series aims to bring together researchers
interested in the agent-level, micro aspects of agent technology.
Specifically, ATAL-97 will address issues such as theories of rational
agency, software architectures for intelligent agents, methodologies and
programming languages for realising agents, and software tools for applying
and evaluating agent systems. Papers that consider macro-level, societal
issues of agent-based systems are welcome only if they explicitly relate to
the workshop themes. ATAL-97 will be held over the three days immediately
preceding the AAAI-97 conference, also being held in Providence. The ATAL-97
proceedings will be formally published as volume four of the Intelligent
Agents series from Springer-Verlag.
                               WORKSHOP THEMES
As the title suggests, the workshop has three main themes:
   * Agent theories: What approaches (e.g., game theory, temporal/modal
     logic) are appropriate for agent theory? How do these approaches relate
     to one another?
   * Agent architectures: What architectures are appropriate for autonomous
     agents? How can such architectures be given a formal semantics? How can
     different agent architectures be evaluated and compared? What
     methodologies can be used to build agent-based applications? How close
     are these methodologies to existing formal specification languages or
     object-oriented analysis and design methods?
   * Agent languages: What programming paradigms are most suitable for
     agents? How do agent-oriented languages differ from object-oriented and
     logic programming languages? What are efficient implementation
     mechanisms for these languages?
This year there will be a special track on methodologies for agent-based
systems. The track will include both full paper presentations and a panel
session. Questions of interest include: Are variations on object-oriented
techniques appropriate for agent-based systems? Are variations on techniques
for real-time and distributed systems appropriate? What will agent-oriented
requirements and specification techniques look like? What tools are
available for agent-oriented software engineering?
Papers that cross theme boundaries are of particular interest. An example
would be a paper that demonstrated how a particular agent architecture
embodied some theory of agency.
                             SUBMISSION DETAILS
Those wishing to participate in the workshop should submit an original
research paper of up to 5000 words (approximately 13 pages maximum) to the
chair for their region. Electronic submission in PostScript is strongly
encouraged, but four single-sided hard copies will also suffice. The first
page should include the full name and contact details (including email, full
postal address, and telephone number if possible) of at least one author.
Formatting instructions are available from the workshop WWW site (see
above). The preproceedings will be distributed at the workshop; the formal
proceedings will be published shortly afterwards.
Those wishing to attend without presenting a paper should send a brief
summary of their interests in agents to the organising committee chair
Munindar Singh. Attendance will, of necessity, be limited.
                                  TIMETABLE
 Submissions due               April 18, 1997
 Notifications sent            May 23, 1997
 Prefinal versions due         July 1, 1997
 Workshop                      July 24-26, 1997
                            ORGANISING COMMITTEE
 Munindar P. Singh                              (GENERAL/AMERICAS CHAIR)
 Department of Computer Science                Email singh@ncsu.edu
 North Carolina State University               Tel   (+1 919) 515.5677
 Raleigh, NC 27695-8206, USA                   Fax   (+1 919) 515.7896
 Anand Rao                                      (ASIA/PACIFIC-RIM CHAIR)
 Australian AI Institute                       Email anand@aaii.oz.au
 Level 6, 171 La Trobe Street                  Tel   (+61 3) 663 7922
 Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia           Fax   (+61 3) 663 7937
 Michael J. Wooldridge                          (EUROPEAN CHAIR)
 Mitsubishi Electric Digital Library Group     Email mjw@dlib.com
 18th Floor, Centre Point, 103 New Oxford Str  Tel   (+44 171) 395 7234
 London WC1A 1EB, U.K.                         Fax   (+44 171) 395 7209
 Nicholas R. Jennings
 Department of Electronic Engineering          Email N.R.Jennings@qmw.ac.uk
 Queen Mary & Westfield College                Tel   (+44 1 71) 975 5349
 Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, U.K.            Fax   (+44 1 81) 981 0259
 Joerg P. Mueller
 Mitsubishi Electric Digital Library Group     Email jpm@dlib.com
 18th Floor, Centre Point, 103 New Oxford Str  Tel   (+44 171) 395 7240
 London WC1A 1EB, U.K.                         Fax   (+44 171) 395 7209
                              PROGRAM COMMITTEE
(A few additional members are expected.)
Ron Arkin               Georgia Tech, USA
Pete Bonasso            USA
Hans-Dieter Burkhard    Humboldt U, Germany
Cristiano Castelfranchi IP-CNR/U Siena, Italy
John-Jules Ch. Meyer    U Utrecht, The Netherlands
Keith Decker            U Delaware, USA
Ed Durfee               U Michigan, USA
Jacques Ferber          LAFORIA, France
Jim Firby               U Chicago, USA
Klaus Fischer           DFKI, Germany
Michael Fisher          Manchester Metropolitan U, UK
Stan Franklin           Memphis U, USA
Fausto Giunchiglia      IRST, Italy
Piotr Gmytrasiewicz     U Texas at Arlington, USA
Afsaneh Haddadi         Daimler-Benz, Germany
Henry Hexmoor           SUNY Buffalo, USA
Kurt Konolige           SRI, USA
Sarit Kraus             Bar-Ilan U, Israel
Yves Lesperance         York U, Canada
James Lester            NCSU, USA
Charles Rich            MERL, USA
Jeff Rosenschein        AgentSoft/Hebrew U, Israel
Wei-Min Shen            ISI, USA
Carles Sierra           CSIC, Spain
Devika Subramanian      Rice U, USA
Kurt Sundermeyer        Daimler-Benz, Germany
Katia Sycara            CMU, USA
Milind Tambe            ISI, USA
Jan Treur               Vrije U of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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singh@ncsu.edu