First email: Saturday, 6 April 2024 (Updated, links)
To: The Editors of The Open Notebook
Congratulations with all that you do.
Science has been flawed since Aristotle’s most basic mistake in geometry. It’s a bit hard to believe that one rather simple error could impact us all so fundamentally. Yet, though unwittingly introduced, misinformation becomes disinformation when the error goes on for over 1800 years and becomes too big an embarrassment for our intellectual community, so the data gets kind-of, sort-of “unwittingly” buried and forgotten.
Please note that the embedded link goes to: http://81018.com/biased/#Aristotle
Five hundred years later, a scholar shared his re-discovery of the mistake. It’s written in Dutch so not many people processed it. Even with the translation decades later, it has been rather tenuously received by scholars. Nobody really cares. Finally, fifty years later, two prominent mathematicians, one from Ann Arbor and the other from Beijing, write an article in 2012. It is recognized by the American Mathematical Society in 2015 with a most-distinguished award, but Aristotle’s mistake is still ignored. Nobody talks about it. It is a major academic faux pas, a mistake by a master that was missed by the masters and dismissed as trivial because it must be trivial if the academics are not talking about it.
Embedded links go to: https://81018.com/struik/ and https://81018.com/biased/#Zong
What a dilemma! It is no wonder why we are so messed up.
First, we all have to come to terms with the mistake. Our quick summary of the 2012 work by Lagarias and Zong (published by the AMS) may be helpful as a start — http://81018.com/biased/#Aristotle We have asked many scholars for their explanation as to how that gap may appear within space time. While we are waiting, we took this stab at it: https://81018.com/geometries/
Science and mathematics are flawed without fully grasping the dimensions of that gap in our knowledge systems and how mistakes beget mistakes. No wonder this world is such a mess. It all started from a mistake by a genius who was one of the greatest influencers of Western culture, education and knowledge.
That’s an “oopsie-daisey” if there ever was one.
So, let’s stop ignoring our mistakes. When we acknowledge our mistakes we grow. Plus, it happens to the very best of us, Aristotle, Einstein, Hawking…. and the beat goes on.
Thank you.
Most sincerely,
Bruce
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Bruce E. Camber
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Background: On Apr 5, 2024, at 6:06 PM, Siri Carpenter, a founder and editor of The Open Notebook sent a totally endearing note around to those people who have registered on their site. The note above was my response to her. -BEC
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