Halika 3.0

Look at how they stumbled: flat on their faces.

The mediaman who slipped

Rony V. Diaz writes in his article that came out in the Manila Times and ABS-CBN Interactive:

In 1993 Andrew Wiles of Princeton University announced at a lecture in London that he had proved Fermat’s last theorem (FLT). This is a conjecture by the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat in 1637 that for any integer n greater than 2, Fermat’s equation that claimed xn + yn = zn has no solution in integers x, y z except 0 which satisfies the equation.

…

Escultura, who had been working on the problem since 1992, disputed Wiles’ claim and inserted his refutation in the appendix to his book, Diophantus: Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. He went on to present his results at the Second International Conference on Dynamic Systems and Applications in Atlanta in 1995.

…

On April 26, Andrew Wiles conceded an error in his proof. His letter and Escultura’s reply are below.

The truth about Andrew Wiles and Edgar Escultura

Alecks Pabico of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) writes:

As it turned out, Escultura’s claims regarding Wiles’s acknowledgment of errors in his proof of FLT are merely based on a guestbook entry in his website by someone purporting to be Andrew Wiles. I say that because there is no way to verify the authenticity of the message since “Andrew Wiles” did not provide any contact information, not even his email address. Some have even recognized the tone of sarcasm in the supposed Wiles’s letter as to give it much credence [source]

The guestbook in question

Tuesday 04/26/2005 6:57:33am
Name: Andrew Wiles
Homepage:
E-Mail:
Referred By: E-Mail
City/Country:
Comments: Dear Sir,

You work is incredible, I read all of it just yesterday and let me tell you I respect you. I am going to review all my ‘proof’ which I am sure is wrong (thanks to you !).

Would you like you to collaborate with me in this work, I have noticed some imperfections in your perfect proof (that sounds like you), and I’d like to create a perfect proof with you, great proffessor.

Also I’d like to have the address of the guy who let you get a PhD 30 years ago, I’d like to discuss few things with him…

VERY respectfully,

A. Wiles

—

Tuesday 05/03/2005 9:07:46am
Name: E. E. Escultura
Homepage:
E-Mail:
Referred By: Just Surfed In
City/Country:
Comments: Dear Prof. Wiles,

I welcome and appreciate your comments and I hope we can have a continuing dialogue. Regarding your invitation for me to collaborate with you, I would be glad to. But, here is the situation:

My critique of mathematics is focused not on your work but mainly on the underlying fields of FLT which are foundations, number theory and the real number system. Here is what I found:

1) Two of the axioms of the real number system are false, namely, the trichotomy and the completeness axioms (the latter is a variant of the axiom of choice), counterexamples to them were constructed by Brouwer and Banach-Tarski, respectively.

2) I also noted a flaw in the use of the universal or existential quantifiers on infinite set.

3) To avoid contradictions, it is necessary to well-define a mathematical space and its concepts by a consistent set of axioms. A concept is well-defined if its existence, properties and relationship with other concepts are specified by the axioms. Most of the concepts of mathematics today are ill-defined.

Based on these findings I constructed the new real number system on three simple axioms. Its most updated version appears in the Journal of Nonlinear Analysis and Phenomena. An extended abstract of it appears in my updated website in June.

Yes, indeed, there are imperfections in my work but not in principles. And if
you find major ones I would like to know.

Regarding my academic advisor, he was the late L. C. Young, distinguished research professor and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin.

Again, thank you for your interest in my work and for inviting me to collaborate with you

With my very best wishes.

E. E. Escultura [source]

I hereby classify Edgar Escultura’s guestbook under ‘humor’ with a description that goes this way: “A math professor who discovered something big but can’t figure out what is funny”.

Likewise, I hereby put Diaz, Manila Times and ABS-CBN Interactive under ‘ooops’ with the caption: “Why traditional media can be worse than bloggers”.

By the way, the latest entry on the guestbook:

Tuesday 05/24/2005 5:57:51am
Name: Johannes Hieber
Homepage: http://www.karolinska.se
E-Mail:
Referred By: Friend
City/Country: Sweden
Comments: Dear Professor Escultura,

Greetings.

As a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, you will be pleased to know that we have read your work on the Grand Unified Theory and deem it worthy of a nomination for the Nobel Prize for Physics. You may be aware of the very rigid selection process and the strenous peer-review needed to win this medal but the high quality and creativity of your academic work merits a nomination. We should be happy to receive an orignal manuscript of your work regarding the Grand Unified Theory. This will then be submitted to the Board for consideration. At this stage, I cannot promise you the prize, that is in the hands of the selection committee, but you can rest assured that you are in the good company of many other eminent physicists that have been nominated.

In your service,
Johannes Hieber
Member, The Swedish Academy of Sciences

Karolinska Institutet
SE-171 77 Stockholm
Nobels väg 8
Tel +46 8 524 864 60
Fax +46 8 33 89 66 [source]

What’s your take?

This gave me a great idea on how to promote a site.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 24th, 2005 at 1:28 pm and is filed under Changing the World, Scandal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.