HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Subject: Copyright duration  Was: Re: High Prices of Math Books. I am pissed.
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 14:58:28 GMT

In article <1iqikbINN583@master.cs.rose-hulman.edu> brock@NeXTwork.Rose-Hulman.Edu (Bradley W. Brock) writes:
>In article <C0nI4K.KzD@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman  
>Rubin) writes:
>> It is not that uncommon that I would like to use as a text a book which
>> is out of print.  It used to be that a copyright was for 44 years; I
>> believe it is now lasts until 50 years after the death of the author.

>I thought copyrights lasted for 28 years and were renewable, and that  
>photocopying an out-of-print book was legal.  Can anyone verify this?

The first question was raised on misc.legal.  The duration of a copyright
is until 50 years after the death of the last author, or 75 years if it
was put out by a corporation.

As to the second question, the answer depends on the use.  There are
"fair use" provisions for copyrighted material, and these are not 
totally clear.  However, if you want to use the book as a textbook
for a course, the answer is generally no.  Our department is using
such a book as a textbook, and royalty costs are about 40% of what 
the student has to pay for it.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@snap.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: yeomans@austin.onu.edu (Charles Yeomans)
Subject: Re: Fields Medal Winners
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 16:37:11 GMT
Organization: Ohio Northern University

In article <erwin.726504145@trwacs>, erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin) writes:
> 
> At one time, I was under the impression that Bott and Artin had won the
> Fields Medal. It seems I'm wrong. Can someone confirm or deny? 
> 
> This impression is associated with one of those stories. I understand
> Artin, Atiyah, and Bott were the first three at the math tripos one year
> at Oxford (1950?). Apparently it made quite an impression.
> 
Neither Bott nor Artin (E. or M.) have won.  The list is in the FAQ post.

Charles Yeomans
From: gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk (G.J. McCaughan)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Re: High Prices of Math Books. I am pissed.
Date: 6 Jan 93 15:11:49 GMT
Organization: U of Cambridge, England

In article <1idj1gINNhah@roundup.crhc.uiuc.edu> hougen@focus.csl.uiuc.edu (Darrell Roy Hougen) writes:
>goddard@NeXTwork.Rose-Hulman.Edu (Bart E. Goddard) writes:
>
>% In articles <> several well-meaning but misguided souls write:
>%% Have they suddenly lost the ability to use the libraries?
>% Just how many copies of a text book do you suppose a library carries?
>
>You said that college students didn't have the opportunity to read,
>*not* just that text books were expensive.  But if you want to devise
>a solution, why not ask professors to require less expensive books in
>their courses?  There are many very high quality books that appear as
>paper backs.

Very many, perhaps. Not enough, once you get beyond a certain level.
It seems clear that it would be better (and probably no more infeasible)
to require publishers to bring books out in paperback. Note that I said
"no more infeasible", not "no less feasible".

>%%  The idea that some are going without food is ridiculous.
>
>% No it isn't.  I can't imagine a time in my future when I will cease to be 
>% bitter about the ignorant comments made by middle-class frat boys who've
>% had everything handed to them on a silver-plated platter.
>
>I resent that.  I have never belonged to a fraternity, I attended an
>inexpensive undergraduate institution for lack of much choice and I
>have worked hard for every penny in grad school.  But I cannot see
>sticking it to others to make my life easier.  Enough of special
>interest politics.  

So you think it is fair that people from poor families can't go to the
best institutions without spending years making money first? There is
much to be said for providing education on equal terms for all, or at
least for discriminating on the basis of ability rather than of wealth.
And it can be done without bankrupting the government; the UK has had
such a system for ages, and it has worked all right.

-- 
Gareth McCaughan     Dept. of Pure Mathematics & Mathematical Statistics,
gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk  Cambridge University, England.    [Research student]
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: ilan@leland.Stanford.EDU (ilan vardi)
Subject: Re: Job Application Skills
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Distribution: sci
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 02:26:02 GMT

In article <93011.175039U53644@uicvm.uic.edu> <U53644@uicvm.uic.edu>
writes: 
>Uhhhhhh...........Well, at the risk of repeating some bad
history....... 
 > > Yes, recent graduates in Mathematics HAVE been having a rough time
   >getting work, as almost everyone acknowledges right now (kind of like 
   >admitting that the weather has been getting cold). However, while I might
   >respect the determination of someone who is about to renew his abandoned job 
   >hunt, I can't respect his judgement. After a while, one has to face the reality 
   >that a certain avenue of attack is futile, and try something else.  
   > > Find an area of application, be it engineering, medicine, computer 
   >science, business, whatever - so long as your area of Mathematics finds real
    >application there (I'm afraid that Differential Geometers are out of
luck here) 
    >. Develop real expertise in that field, and branch out
into it. Don't fall prey 
    >to the preconception that application work
is dry and uncreative - far from it.  
    >OK, so you aren't going to get that academic post. 

You have completely missed the point. Mathematicians aren't in
Academia just because they like to teach classes, make money, or just
enjoy wearing tweed coats with shoulder patches. One of the main
reasons is that academia seems to be the only place left where
mathematicians can do research. As a matter of fact, if a university
professor doesn't care about research at all he should probably be
called a ``mathematics teacher'' and not a mathematician. There are a
number of active mathematicians not presently in academia who are
finding it harder and harder to pursue their research, and would be
perfectly content to stay out if they could carry on with their work
(I suspect that Allan Adler, the instigator of this discussion, is a
prime example).




Newsgroups: sci.math
From: regeorge@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Robert E George)
Subject: Re: probability = 0
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 18:57:47 GMT

In article <9301051655.AA22441@aplpy.jhuapl.edu> louis@aplpy.jhuapl.edu (Louis
Vasquez) writes:
>Hello,
>    My friend and I got in a debate about the probability of
>something happening.  The event was that another friend of ours
>could win the superbowl.  Not that he would play on a winning team
>in the superbowl but that he would win it.
[deletions to save space]
>    His arguments (although I must admit I probably don't fully
>understand them) are that by definition a single person cannot win
>the superbowl.  And the case that I gave is a finite case in an
>infinite number of possible cases and therefore the probability is
>n devided by infinity, a limit which approaches zero.  Therefore he
>says there is a probability of exactly zero that this will happen.
>    Anyone care to comment?
>    Lou,
>    louis@aplpy.jhuapl.edu
>

    Consider a random variable with a Poisson distribution. There are
infinitely many possible realizations of the r.v. -- 0,1,2,3,4 , . . .
By the above argument,each of those realizations would have probability
zero, which is of course incorrect.

     A very big part of the problem is that there are (at least) two
infinities, one countable and the other uncountable. The idea of probability
is very much tied up with that of integration -- consult an analysis or
introductory probability textbook.

Robert George
The Ohio State University Statistics Department
(speaking only for myself)
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: bs@gauss.mitre.org (Robert D. Silverman)
Subject: Re: Frankly,my dear......was: Fermat's Last Theorem
Organization: Research Computer Facility, MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 12:52:11 GMT

In article <1993Jan7.054017.25511@leland.Stanford.EDU> ilan@leland.Stanford.EDU (ilan vardi) writes:
:In article <1993Jan7.021308.10566@nuscc.nus.sg> matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (.) writes:
:>I wonder if this might not be an occasion for some soul- searching on the
:>part of professional mathematicians. X^n+ y^n = Z^n has no solutions....  
:>frankly, who cares? It's recreational mathematics, right? The only reason
:>anyone cares about it is that the proof is hard. Let me give you an
:
:I disagree with this. One of the reasons people are interested is that
:a certain phenomenon is taking place (i.e., *no* solutions exist) and
:no one can explain why this happens. This is a natural phenomenon that
:should be explained. Moreover, this is why Fermat's Last Theorem is
:still important even though Falting's proved there were only a finite
:number of solutions for any p--it says that this equation captures
:something special about cyclotomic fields, or whatever will eventually
 
By the work or Serre, Ribet, et. al. it also captures something special
about elliptic curves.

:be involved in the proof (as opposed to another equation).
:
:I think your statement applies more to conjectures like Goldbach's,
:twin primes, or even 3x+1, for which one has a good idea of why they
:should be true and what is going on. In the case of the first two, it
:seems like it really is only a technical gap that needs to be filled,
 
The technical gap involved in Goldbach's or the twin prime conjecture
[or Schinzel's conjecture which is more important but less well known]
is the parity problem in sieve methods.  This is an extremely difficult
and VERY important unsolved problem and involves some deep mathematics.
Finding a way to solve the parity problem would settle MANY open problems.
As such, it might be argued that it is a fundamental technique.

The study of FLT is important not because one really cares about solutions
of this particular equation, but rather because its study has led to the
development of techniques that are applicable to MANY problems.

:for example, Chen's method, which is the best so far, is not exactly
:well known.
 
Chen's method is fairly well known among analytic number theorists.

--
Bob Silverman
These are my opinions and not MITRE's.
Mitre Corporation, Bedford, MA 01730
"You can lead a horse's ass to knowledge, but you can't make him think"
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: Help me deal w/ infinity
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 23:30:51 GMT

In article <11664@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr) writes:
>In article <1992Dec23.030309.125@front.se> samuel@front.se writes:
>>
>>If this argument doesn't help, why don't ask your friends exactly how much 
>>they think that 0.999999... differs from 1.
>
>Good suggestion.  I think this will help these poor souls examine the 
>unexamined assumption that are leading them to have trouble with the 
>proof, which is a very real difficulty with the fact that multiplying 
>.999.... by 10 does *not* change the number of 9s after the decimal 
>point!  I would love to overhear their conversation: 
>
>The difference is 1 times 10 to the something power, lets see... hmm, 
>it would seem that whatever power of 10 I choose, there is a larger 
>power I could use.... how many 9s are there again? 

Simpler answer: the difference is precisely 0.000000...

Hmm.  Or mabe it's 0.00000... or 0.0000000...

Not so simple after all.

.
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: cmspring@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu (Colin Springer)
Subject: Cantor set problem
Organization: Pure Math Club, University of Waterloo
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 19:21:23 GMT


I'd be interested in any solutions or references anyone might find for the
following problem which I've been thinking about recently.

Problem:  Consider the subset of the plane formed by starting with the Cantor
set placed on the interval [0,1], and for any two points a, b in this set
we construct the circle centered at a passing through b.  Does this set have
measure zero?

If this were the case we could use this set as a "blanket" which could be
translated to cover any given circle of radius at most 1, and was of measure
zero.  Such a "blanket" can be formed to cover rectangles of arbitrary
dimensions, but I'm not sure if it's possible.  The above construction is my
best guess: if it doesn't work, I'd be interested in any other possible
construction, with proof if possible.

Have fun with it!

Colin
From: your-email-addr@a1.mscf.upenn.edu (Jesse Goldman)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Finding best mate
Date: 4 Jan 93 17:54:43 GMT
Followup-To: sci.math
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

Dear Mathematicians;

     This weekend I saw an interview on T.V. with a mathematician who
stated that if a woman assumes she is to have 100 suitors in her life then
her best
chances of finding an ideal mate would be to reject the first 37 and then
choose the next one better than the preceeding 37.
     I am not a mathematician or physicist but I understand that this has
something to do with e (root of natural log).  Could any of you math dudes
or dudettes explain this to me?  Thanks in advance.

Please post responses 


==============================================================================
Dirty part of Math       =Physics
Dirty part of Physics    =Chemistry
Dirty part of Chemistry  =Biology
Dirty part of Biology    =Medicine
.....No wonder I'm confused.

                           Jesse Goldman  M.D.
==============================================================================
From: jgrij@lhdsy1.lahabra.chevron.com (Joey J. Griffin)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Re: sum(i=1 to n, i^3) = ??   URGENT !!
Summary: Here Goes:
Date: 7 Jan 93 16:39:48 GMT
Organization: Chevron, La Habra, CA




Olivier writes:

> Article 35846 (72 more) in sci.math:
> From: byrde@imhfhp16.epfl.ch (Olivier BYRDE)
> Subject: sum(i=1 to n, i^3) = ??   URGENT !!
> Message-ID: <1993Jan7.145215@imhfhp16.epfl.ch>
> Organization: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
 
> Could someone give me the general formula for this sum ?
 
> Thanks, Olivier

I just can't resist:

1^3 + 2^3 + 3^3 + ... + n^3 = (1 + 2 + 3 + ... n) ^ 2
       Proof by induction.

1 + 2 + 3 + ... n = n*(n+1) / 2

therefore:

sum(i=1 to n, i^3) = ( n*(n+1)/2) ^2

Is this right ;-)


 -------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Joe Griffin                            Internet:   jgrij@chevron.com
   Chevron Oil Field Research Company    Opinions are my own, not my employers 
   P.O. Box 446, La Habra, CA 90633-0446   
.May the peace and joy of Christ be with you
-- 
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Joe Griffin                            Internet:   jgrij@chevron.com
   Chevron Oil Field Research Company    Opinions are my own, not my employers 
   P.O. Box 446, La Habra, CA 90633-0446                        
Newsgroups: sci.math,alt.books.technical
From: tleylan@pegasus.com (Tom Leylan)
Subject: Re: High Prices of Math Books. I am pissed.
Organization: Pegasus,  Honolulu
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 93 07:19:45 GMT

bathurst@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Bruce Bathurst) writes:

>The defending of American book prices as reasonable because they are
>expensive to produce misses the point that students can't buy them.

Some of us didn't get to attend Princeton and I didn't get to attend 
a university at all... now I'm writing a technical book and you think
the price should be based upon the income of a student ?

It's those darn people who work at publishing companies and those guys
who run presses and produce paper and those book store owners why don't
they learn that their sons and daughters don't get to go to Princeton
and just work for less.

Why don't I uhhhh just give it away ?

tom
From: zou@math.arizona.edu (Maorong Zou)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Help needed on a simple algebraic problem
Date: 6 Jan 93 21:17:07 GMT
Organization: Mathematics Department, University of Arizona





Hi, I run into the following problem which I cannot solve. I'll 
appreciate any pointers.

 Let F(x,y) be a polynomial in x and y. Suppose there are two
other polynomials P(x,y) and Q(x,y) such that

               d F(x,y)                 d F(x,y)
    P(x,y) *  ----------  +  Q(x,y) *  ----------  = 1
                 d x                      d y

Show that F(x,y) is IRREDUICIBLE in C[x,y].


Maorong Zou 

zou@math.arizona.news
 

-- 

Maorong Zou       | Internet: zou@math.arizona.edu
Dept. of Math.    | UUCP: ..{allegra,cmcl2,hao!noao}!arizona!amethyst!zou
Univ. of Arizona  | Bitnet: zou@arizjvax
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: nissim@mary.fordham.edu (Leonard J. Nissim)
Subject: Re: Simpson's Paradox
Organization: Fordham University
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 20:45:00 GMT
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Distribution: usa
X-Posted-From: mary.fordham.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

In article <93005.090225U15803@uicvm.uic.edu>, 
Manuel M. Flores <U15803@uicvm.uic.edu> writes...
>Does anybody know where I might find a text file explaining Simpson's
>Paradox as it applies to statistics? Or any other text files explaining
>other such theories?
> 
>Thanks,
> 
>MMF

In the November 1992 issue of the American Mathematical Monthly, two
examples of Simpson's Paradox are given; here is one of them:  

                      Ken Oberkfell                  Mike Scioscia

                      At-bats  hits  batting ave     At-bats  hits  batting ave
1983                   488     143    .293             35      11    .314
1984                   324      87    .269            341      93    .273
                       ---     ---                    ---     ---
2-year total           812     230    .283            376     104    .277

The "paradox" is that Scioscia beat Oberkfell (in batting average) in each of 
the two years, but lost to him in the 2-year composite. 

It is not a paradox at all; just a demonstraton that a1/b1 > c1/d1 and 
also a2/b2 > c2/d2 do *not* imply that (a1+a2)/(b1+b2) > (c1+c2)/(d1+d2).

E.H. Simpson's original paper "The interpretation of interaction in contingency
tables" can be found in the Journal of the Royal Stat. Soc., series B, vol. 13, 
no. 2, (1951) pp238-241.  (Sorry, have no electronic file of it.)

The A.M.M. article was written by Richard J. Friedlander, Dept. of Mathematics 
and Computer Science, Univ. of Missouri--St. Louis.  

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leonard Nissim, notorious Dodger fanatic     (nissim@mary.fordham.edu)  
Disclaimer:  "I speak only for myself."   
World Championships:  Brooklyn-----1955   
                      Los Angeles--1959  1963  1965  1981  1988
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: martin@lyra.cis.umassd.edu (Gary Martin)
Subject: Re: proof wanted 2
Organization: University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
	<1993Jan9.222415.11784@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 01:48:35 GMT

In article <1993Jan9.222415.11784@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> pratt@Sunburn.Stanford.EDU (Vaughan R. Pratt) writes:

   In article <1993Jan8.195646.1694@cc.umontreal.ca> cazelaig@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Cazelais Gilles) writes:
   >
   >                                                       n
   >Is it true that if  C  is a nonempty closed subset of R  and x is a point
   >not in  C  that there exists a point c in C that is closest in C to x.
   > 
   >i.e. such that:   |x-c'| >= |x-c| for all c' in C.

   I've been trying to understand quantum mechanics lately, and knowing
   how to prove things like the above seems to be a prerequisite, so let
   me try my hand at it.

   Let t be the distance of some point of C from x, and let r be the
   infimum of all such distances.  If t=r we are done.  Otherwise let B_s
   denote the set of points distant at most s from x, a closed ball, and
   K_s its open complement.  No finite set of K_s's with s>r can cover
   C&B_t, whence by compactness of C&B_t the union of all such K_s's
   leaves some point of C&B_t uncovered, the desired closest point.

Or how 'bout:

Let  t  be the distance of some point of  C  from  x  and let  B  be
the closed ball of radius  t  centered at  x.   B intersect C is
compact and the restriction of the "distance from x" function to this
compact set is continuous, hence attains a minimum.  That minimum
distance is at most  t, which is certainly less than the distance from
x to the any point outside of  B.


--
Gary A. Martin, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, UMass Dartmouth
Martin@cis.umassd.edu
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: ilan@leland.Stanford.EDU (ilan vardi)
Subject: Re: Allan Adler
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 01:42:45 GMT

In article <1ivnr6INNsss@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> somos@ces.cwru.edu (Michael Somos) writes:
>Allan Adler continues to assault the newsgroup sci.math with his
>personal problems based on a complete fantasy that some people may
>be even interested in them to warrant posting about it.
>
>I am only too familiar with his postings to be astonished any more.
>
>Shalom, Michael Somos <somos@ces.cwru.edu>

Let he who is without blame cast the first stone, and I shall cast 
the second.

Shalfemme, 

-ilan
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (.)
Subject: Frankly,my dear......was: Fermat's Last Theorem
Organization: National University of Singapore
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 02:13:08 GMT

edgar@function.mps.ohio-state.edu (Gerald Edgar) writes:
: 
: * I thank those who were polite about it.
: 
: Mathematicians receive so many of these amateur attempts (with elementary
: mistakes in them) that they tend to get impatient with them...
: 
I wonder if this might not be an occasion for some soul- searching on the
part of professional mathematicians. X^n+ y^n = Z^n has no solutions....  
frankly, who cares? It's recreational mathematics, right? The only reason
anyone cares about it is that the proof is hard. Let me give you an
example to show you what I mean. Theorem: 2 and 4 are the only unequal
integers such that x^y = y^x. Why is this theorem not famous? Because [a]
it is boring and [b] the proof is easy. But I think it is no more boring
than FLT. Most of the [allegedly] "interesting" results of elementary
number theory are trivial pursuits of this kind, justified only because
the proofs are hard. But to pay attention to something because it is hard
is to reduce mathematics to chess.					  
 ps I know the usual propaganda about how number theory stimulated
progress in algebraic geometry etc. But surely not even the most
enthusiastic number theorist would claim that algebraic geometry is
important because it is related to number theory.			  
pps: Note that the above diatribe is directed against "elementary" number
theory.
From: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Re: Two (I think) interesting Problems
Date: 8 Jan 93 15:58:45 GMT
Reply-To: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Organization: COMANDOS Project, Glesga Yoonie

yoparish@iiic.ethz.ch (Yoav Ilan Haim Parish) poses the problem
>      How can I fold an approximate (regular) pentagon from a 
>      quadratic sheet of paper easily ?

I haven't seen all the postings in this thread, but the simplest is to fold
the sheet into a long narrow strip, tie it in an overhand knot and pull it
tight.  This gives an exact regular pentagon.

-- 
--  Jack Campin    room G092, Computing Science Department, Glasgow University,
17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RZ, Scotland   TEL: 041 339 8855 x6854 (work)
INTERNET: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk or via nsfnet-relay.ac.uk    FAX: 041 330 4913
BANG!net: via mcsun and uknet     BITNET: via UKACRL    UUCP: jack@glasgow.uucp
Newsgroups: sci.math