HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Re: Why are Some Journals so Expensive?
Date: 30 Jul 92 15:17:01 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department

In article <92211.212853U53644@uicvm.uic.edu> U53644@uicvm.uic.edu writes:
>No, the mathematical community is not the only available collection of
>consumers.

>The problem here is that people forget that the same presses that can be used
>to put out Math books and journals, can be used to put out publications on any
>other subject as well. If the publisher doesn't like the Math market, he can
>expand into others (which will probably be more lucrative anyway). The Math
>market, as dear to all of our hearts as it may be, is a piddling little market.
>No flame here, there's just no polite way to say it - some people here think
>that they have more clout than they actually have. (Collectively, the Math
>community has darn close to none, economically or politically - how much can a
>collection of a few thousand middle class people have ?)

>And in case one point wasn't clear - I am not suggesting that the quality of
>the contents is a minor issue (far from it). Just that frills like having
>nice, glossy paper, staples along the side rather than on the front, and other
>cosmetic issues are. If one can produce a cheaper journal by sacrificing that,
>I see no reason to not do so.

Many of the journals are essentially started by a few individuals in concert
with a publisher.  As long as libraries were willing to get them, they could
charge an amount based on that.  Unfortunately, far too many of them get
enough articles by good enough people so that there are problems with
discontinuing the subscription.  In addition, mathematicians starting
these journals did not consider the costs.

The math community, collectively, has far more clout here than would be
expected.  But it would take a major effort by the top scholars to do it.
Organizations such as the American Mathematical Society tend to get too
many ex-scholars in power, and these push expensive procedures.

Also, as long as scholars do not have to pay for expensive journals out
of scarce funds, they have no reason to try to do much to stop just
paying high prices.  And it is work to do it; the cheaper publishers
typically provide far more work for the often unpaid managing editors
of societies.

Until we get a good means of handling mathematical contributions outside
the journal method, and the even worse method of proceedings of symposia,
this will continue.  At the time these started, they were the only way of
cutting the costs of individual publication and distribution; apparently
Newton was the first to publish new results in a journal.  Before that,
only books and pamphlets written by single authors were used for this
purpose.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!pop.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: chalcraft@uk.tele.nokia.fi (Adam Chalcraft)
Subject: Re: Hailstone sequences
Organization: cpd
	<1992Jul23.234646.7306@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 07:52:43 GMT

In article <1992Jul23.234646.7306@cl.cam.ac.uk> cet1@cl.cam.ac.uk (C.E. Thompson) writes:

>   By the way, it is natural to extend the domain of the function being
>   iterated to include the negative integers (or equivalently, to use
>   3x-1 instead of 3x+1 in the x odd case). As well as the cycle
>
>      (1, 2, 4)
>
>   one then also gets
>
>      (-1, -2)
>      (-5, -14, -7, -20, -10)
>      (-17, -50, -25, -74, -37, -110, -55, -164, -82, -41, -122, -61,
>	 -182, -91, -272, -136, -68, -34)

The result that on the positive integers, the function
  f(x)=3x+1 or x/2
seems to eventually send every positive integer to 1, whereas the function
  f(x)=3x-1 or x/2
does not is rather strange. Clearly the first function is "larger" than the second.
All that this shows, of course, is that the word "larger" has no useful meaning here,
and so any proof that the first function always goes to 1 must use something a bit
more subtle.
--
| Adam      | #include <stddisclaimer.h>                                   |
| Chalcraft | You can tell how tall a story is by how many flaws it's got. |
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: bach@jalapeno.cs.wisc.edu (Eric Bach)
Subject: Re: Re; prime quadruplets ... partial apology
Organization: University of Wisconsin, Madison -- Computer Sciences Dept.
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 22:27:49 GMT

In article <keRf_Ru00iUy02UVMt@andrew.cmu.edu> ow0a+@andrew.cmu.edu (Oswald Wyler) writes:
>My memory was at fault, the problem whether there are infinitely many
>quadruplets 30n+11, 30n+13, 30n+17, 30n+19 of primes, as is the problem
>whether there are infinitely many twin primes p, p+2.  However, I cannot
>buy the "almost certainly" designation -- as little as I can buy Math
>by authority.  The question about quadruplet records still makes sense,
>however.

	Questions like this have received a fair amount of study.  The
	conjectured density of quadruplets <= N is ~ C * N / (log N)^4,
	where C is expressible as an infinite product over the primes.
	This is based on probabilistic arguments, and agrees with
	numerical data, as far as we know.  Using sieve methods, it can 
	be shown that the number is O( N / (log N)^4 ).

	Here are some references.

	P. T. Bateman and R. A. Horn, A heuristic asymptotic formula 
	concerning the distribution of prime numbers, Math. Comp. 1962.

	Lord Cherwell, Note on the distribution of the intervals between
	prime numbers, Quart. J. Math. Oxford, 1946.

	Lord Cherwell and E. M. Wright, The frequency of prime-patterns,
	Quart. J. Math. Oxford, 1960.

	G. H. Hardy and J. E. Littlewood, Some problems of `partitio 
	numerorum' {III}: on the expression of a number as a sum of 
	primes, Acta Math. 1922.

	L. E. Dickson, A new extension of Dirichlet's theorem on
	prime numbers, Messenger of Math., 1904. 

	H. Riesel, Primes forming arithmetic series and clusters of
	large primes, BIT 1970.

	M. F. Jones, M. Lal, and W. J. Blundon, Statistics on certain
	large primes, Math. Comp., 1967.

	A. Schinzel and W. Sierpinski, Sur certaines hypotheses
	concernant les nombres premiers, Acta Arith., 1958.
	(See also Schinzel, Acta Arith., 1961.)

	H. F. Smith, On a generalization of the prime pair problem,
	Math. Tables Aids Comp. (now Math. Comp.), 1956.

	J. Bohman, Some computational results regarding the prime numbers
	below 2,000,000,000, BIT 1973.

	W. A. Golobew, Abzahlung von `Vierlingen -- Neunlingen' bis 
	20 000 000, Anz. Oesterreich. Akad. Wiss., 1972.

	--Eric Bach
	  bach@cs.wisc.edu
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: wayne@econ.yale.edu (Kevin Wayne)
Subject: FTP Site for ESIPACK / LINPACK
Organization: Economics Department, Yale University, New Haven, Ct.
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 18:29:06 GMT


Does anyone know of an FTP site that has the source code (preferably
in C) for the EISPACK and LINPACK math libraries?

Please send e-mail to wayne@aida.econ.yale.edu

Thanks in advance
From: moravec@Think.COM (Hans Moravec)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Re: A puzzle!
Date: 24 Jul 1992 21:46:28 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: turing.think.com
Keywords: Math, puzzle

Too trivial with Mathematica to factor for you.  Next term is

   428616352408083840000000

Newsgroups: sci.math
From: orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Subject: Re: Problem: find smallest box around points in 3D
Organization: Smith College, Northampton, MA, US
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 16:52:41 GMT

In article <BrvsH1.Myp@iai.kfk.de> harry@issun1.kfk.de writes:
>I have some points in 3D space and I want to find the smallest rectangular box
>which encloses these points. The orientation of the box in 3D is arbitrary 
>(otherwise the problem would be trivial).

How do you define smallest?  If you are interested in minimal volume,
the following paper provides an algorithm (but nowhere near code):

	@article{minbox
	, author =	"J. O'Rourke"
	, title =	"Finding minimal enclosing boxes"
	, journal =	"Internat. J. Comput. Inform. Sci."
	, volume =	"14"
	, month =	"June"
	, year =	"1985"
	, pages =	"183--199"
	}
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: bs@faron.mitre.org (Robert D. Silverman)
Subject: Re: Sieve  (Was Re; Re; prime quadruplets ... partial apology)
Organization: Research Computer Facility, MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 23:41:02 GMT

In article <1992Jul30.171603.14329@husc3.harvard.edu> kubo@zariski.harvard.edu (Tal Kubo) writes:
 
stuff deleted....

:i.e. the conjectured density is the product of local densities 
:[essentially  (1-4/p)]  taken over few enough primes less than N
:to maintain the 'independence' of congruences modulo different
:primes.  Some questions for the experts:
:
:>	This is based on probabilistic arguments, 
:                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^        
:   1)  Are there problems where the heuristic arguments fail?
:
Yes. Certainly. One very well known failure is the probabalistic argument
for Fermat's Last Theorem. While it works for exponents greater than 3,
it fails for exponent 3. That is to say the heuristic predicts that
there should be an infinite number of solutions for exponent 3.

:   2)  Can one guess the prime number theorem from heuristics?
 
Yes, but only approximately (up to a constant factor). See, for example
the derivation of Merten's Theorem in Hardy and Wright. Roughly speaking
the probability that a large number is prime is the probability that it
is NOT divisible by 2,3,5,....... . This probability is (1-1/2)*(1-1/3)*
(1-1/5)*.....(1-1/sqrt(n)).  This product is O(n/log(n)). [the constants
are known. see Merten's theorem]. There are other heuristics that suggest
the constant is 1.

:>                                                 and agrees with
:>	numerical data, as far as we know.  Using sieve methods, it can 
:>	be shown that the number is O( N / (log N)^4 ).
:
:   3)  How convincing is the numerical data?  Is there reason
 
It is VERY convincing. In fact, in a loose sense it is overwhelming.

:       to believe that breakdown of heuristic hypotheses such as
:       independence could be tested in the range of computations
:       feasible today? 
 
Not really. If they do break down it is likely out of range.
--
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: aet@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (bert thompson)
Subject: ALGEBRAIC NUMBER ARITHMETIC
Keywords: algebraic numbers arithmetic
Organization: Computer Science, University of Melbourne, Australia
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 11:15:32 GMT

hi!

i want to perform arithmetic on algebraic numbers.

if i represent an algebraic number by an polynomial in integers
and an interval in which is found the root of the polynomial
corresponding to the represented number.

so sqrt(2) might look like this:

  2  
x   -  2 = 0      ,    [1, 3/2]


how would i perform the following operations:
(returning a polynomial-interval pair)

+
-
*
/
sqrt
=	(computable? my guess is yes.)
and other operations you might think are worth mentioning...

i would greatly appreciate any help.
btw, if you can think of a better representation, that would be great too!
btw^2, i suspect these operations will be inefficient^n as well.
btw^3, references would be good.

	regards,

	bert.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
bert thompson	aet@munagin.ee.mu.oz.au.
SITEE		school of information technology and electrical engineering
		university of melbourne
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Marc Roussel)
Subject: Re: library cutbacks
Organization: Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto
Distribution: sci
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 18:47:18 GMT

In article <92210.010238U53644@uicvm.uic.edu> <U53644@uicvm.uic.edu> writes:
>      What's wrong with desktop publishing ? [...]
>this purpose), and some commonly marketed software. One loses a little
>elegance [...]
>but if the other option is to have too few journals, it
>would seem to be an acceptable loss.

     I would argue that there are already too many journals out there.
"Publish or perish", as we currently know it, results in volume but not
usually in quality.  The budget crunch which our university libraries
are facing is a good thing as it should result in some of the (intellectually)
poorer journals ceasing publication and in the better journals becoming even
more selective.

				Marc R. Roussel
                                mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: jbaez@nevanlinna.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: What more do you want?
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 21:42:21 GMT

In article <1992Jul21.190243.16846@galois.mit.edu> tycchow@riesz.mit.edu (Timothy Y. Chow) writes:

>A [rushing in excitedly]: I've done it!  I've proved that Goldbach's
>   conjecture holds for all sufficiently large even numbers!
>B: Congratulations!  So now you can write a computer program to check
>   all the remaining even numbers and Goldbach's conjecture will be
>   completely settled, right?
>A: Well, not quite...I proved that there exists a constant C beyond
>   which Goldbach's conjecture holds, but I don't have any idea how
>   big C is.  On the other hand, that's not a big problem, because
>   C is computable.
>B: You mean there's an algorithm that will give you the value of C
>   explicitly?
>A: Exactly.
>B: So what are we waiting for?  Let's run the algorithm and compute C!
>A: Well, there's a slight problem here...I just managed to prove that
>   such an algorithm exists, and I don't have any idea what the algorithm
>   is like.
>B: Hmmm...well, maybe it's not worth running the algorithm anyway.  Do
>   you have any idea how long it would take to compute C?
>A: Not really, but the running time T of the algorithm is computable...

Yes, this is another great example of the slipperiness of certain
notions.   We should add the following:

C: While you guys were arguing away, I just showed that there is an
effective procedure for deciding whether Goldbach's conjecture is true.
In fact, I have just written a program that does the job.  Actually, I
wrote two programs.  Program A prints out the word "True".  Program B
prints out the word "False."  One of these programs is the one that does
the job.
From: mcfarlan@corona.math.washington.edu (Thomas J. McFarlane)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Re: Math or Maths --dates of abbreviations
Date: 24 Jul 92 04:35:09 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Jul24.043509.15777
Organization: University of Washington, Mathematics, Seattle

mckay@alcor.concordia.ca ( John Mckay ) writes:
>
> The Greek is MATHEMATIKOS - when did the abbreviations first occur?
>
My concise Oxford dictionary lists both math and maths as colloquial
abbreviations for mathematics.  Webster's tells me that math was coined
around 1890 and maths in 1911.

Tom McFarlane
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: tordm@vana (Tord Malmgren)
Subject: Euler's Gamma
Reply-To: TordM@VanD.PhySto.SE
Organization: Department of Physics, University of Stockholm -- Sweden
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 16:41:25 GMT

\hsize=15.0cm
\vsize=25.0cm
\noindent

 Hello,

  I'm looking for some fast routine to calculate Euler's $\gamma$. What I
know, as of yet, is:
 
$$\gamma=1+{1\over 2}+{1\over 3}+\ldots +{1\over N}-\ln N$$

as $N\longrightarrow\infty$, which I transformed into

$$\gamma=\sum\limits_{i=2}^{\infty}{{(-1)^i}\over i}\zeta(i)$$

where $\zeta(i)$ is Riemann's Zeta Function. These formul\ae s are very slow,
so if there are some faster one, I'd appreciate any info about them,
references or methods are more than welcome!

\vfill\eject\bye



---------------+--------------------------------
 Tord Malmgren | InterNet: TordM@VanD.PhySto.SE | These opinions are my own,
               | BITNet  : TordM@SESUF51        | and NOT of this department!
---------------+--------------------------------
 Department of Physics, University of Stockholm
From: kainen@cs.umd.edu (Paul Kainen)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Re: The Value of Science
Date: 22 Jul 92 04:43:59 GMT
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742


The original date of publication for Poincare's The Value of Science,
according to Tim Poston's 1971 Thesis on Fuzzy Geometry is 1913.  Even
earlier, 1905, is Science and Hypothesis; my Dover reprint has 1905 as
the date of the translation.  Science and Hypothesis speaks of light
as the domain of projective geometry and seems to anticipate Einstein.
The chapter on Space and Geometry has an extremely interesting study
of psychophysical issues.
Newsgroups: sci.math,soc.culture.british
From: riehm@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Carl Riehm)
Subject: Re: American mathematical hegemony
Organization: Department of Computer Science, McMaster University
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 15:11:37 GMT

In article <1992Jul21.135206.25360@dcs.qmw.ac.uk> mmh@cs.qmw.ac.uk (Matthew Huntbach) writes:
>From: sooz@iastate.edu (Susan F Bradley)
.
.
>> this idiotic notion that the British are more polite than Americans.
>> This woman was decidedly middle class, supposedly well-bred. Where I come
>> from, what she did was not only rude, but mean-spirited and completely
>> uncalled for.
>
>I doubt the intention was to be deliberately rude. Probably
>they just found your accent quaint and amusing. Remember that
.
.
>yourself, but not vice versa. Anti-Americanism is acceptable
>because Americans tend to be wealthy, and the USA bosses the
>world around. It is not so acceptable to laugh at disadvantaged
>groups.
>
>Matthew Huntbach

There is SOME truth to what Mr. Huntback says, but it is mostly rationalization.
To realize how impolite a lot of Brits (and French too, by the way) are, one 
only has to travel in Italy, say.  The difference is truly remarkable.
Carl.
From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: Re: The Value of Science
Keywords: Relativity, Poincare, Whittaker
Date: 30 Jul 92 14:31:08 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: greg@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Gregory Nowak)

In article <1992Jul30.105827.6185@Princeton.EDU>, greg@phoenix (Gregory Nowak) writes:
>}	Although Poincare had the equations of the Lorentz transformation
>}by 1905, HE DID NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY MEANT.  Thus he is rightly
>}not credited with the development of special relativity.

>and if one wants to be a fair-minded historian one has to avoid
>handing out "right" and "wrong" awards. Einstein developed special
>relativity, true -- but don't imagine from that that Poincare or
>Lorentz "didn't understand" something.

I even have trouble saying that Einstein `understood' relativity in the
post-05 years.  His initial rejection of Minkowski geometry is a good
antidote for idol worship.

And see J S Bell's article on teaching relativity in his SPEAKABLE book.
He makes a good pitch for the Lorentzian view.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
Subject: Re: You know, the integers (was: Re: Stupid question about FLT)
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista
	<1992Jul21.163533.15492@galois.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 20:24:09 GMT

In article <1992Jul21.163533.15492@galois.mit.edu> jbaez@zermelo.mit.edu
 (John C. Baez) writes:

   >Now consider the propositional calculus.  There's a consistency proof
   >for it.  However, I claim that this proof isn't worth much if what you
   >are seeking is reassurance that your ideas on logic aren't screwed up.

  Hmm..why try to invest consistency proofs with these religious
connotations?  Why not just read a consistency proof for a theory as a
proof that the theory is consistent?  Such a proof is worth as much or
as little as any other proof in mathematics.

   >It irritates Torkel when I
   >say that this means we're not quite sure what the "real" integers ARE.

  Haha! Actually I'm getting quite used to this kind of thing. It will
always be with us, just like reflections on how we know that anything
exists, or how we can be sure that what you mean by "red" is the same
as what I mean by "red".

   >I think the sense in which I mean this was most clearly indicated by my
   >game show in which one tried to figure out which mathematician was using
   >the real integers and which two were fakes.

  The easy way of finding out is to ask the people involved. Of course,
if you restrict the language they are allowed to use in answering you, you
may make it impossible to decide.

  For an analogous case, but (I hope) one less apt to put people into a
state of frothing excitement, consider the real numbers vs the rational
numbers. They are indistinguishable as ordered sets if we are only allowed
to use the first order language of ordered sets. Yet most mathematicians
have no difficulty in grasping that the order types of these sets are
different.
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: news@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg (USENET News System)
Subject: Re: Converting a mouse location to a 3d coordinate
Followup-To: sci.math
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Nanyang Technological University - Singapore
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 10:41:00 GMT

This article was probably generated by a buggy news reader.
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Subject: Re: Triangulation
Organization: Smith College, Northampton, MA, US
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 13:22:09 GMT

In article <1992Jul27.064833.19391@dutrun2.tudelft.nl> rcpshdb@dutrun2.tudelft.nl (Han de Bruijn) writes:
>Throw an arbitrary number of points at random in the plane.
>
>Does there exist an algorithm that _triangulates_ such an set of points;

There are many such algorithms.  One especially nice triangulation
is the Delaunay triangulation, which has the property that it
maximizes the smallest triangle angle over all triangulations.  And it 
is easy to construct to boot!  See Edelsbrunner's "Algorithms in
Combinatorial Geometry," Springer-Verlag, 1987.
Newsgroups: sci.math