Talk:Four color theorem/Archive 2

message: No, my name is Bob!
:If I'm right, then at the very least, he is behaving in a very un-wiki manner.
Does the wiki manner discourage discussion?
:I don't have enough evidence to convict, but it's mighty suspicious. Let's see what we've got so far.
:(By the way, I'm taking a big risk doing this, because it looks like Dharwadker has already tried to ruin some reputations along the way. I'll get to that in a moment. I'm sure he'll try to delete this post, and probably impersonate me as well.)
Hope Dharwadker doesn't see this! It is very mean of you to make such unfounded allegations. It might be construed that you have some vested interests.
:The anoymous poster at one point argued that
: 1) The map M(N) cannot be colored with less than N colors because then some of the elements of the group algebra will represent empty sets of regions and the group actions cannot be defined.
: 2) The map M(N) cannot be colored with more than N colors because then some of the elements of the group algebra will represent unions of multiple regions (modulo N), violating the topological subdivision of the riemann surface.
:The above text was copied verbatim from http://fourcolourtheorem.tripod.com/. This page claims to be a review of Dharwadker's proof, by someone called Robert Stewart. (By the time you read my post, this site will probably be removed or edited. Try Google's cached copy.)
No, the site is still there. Would you like a pdf copy of my review?
:Interestingly, the review is dated 31 July 2005, which is four days ago. Keep in mind that Julyo and I started having this discussion here about two weeks ago.
No, I didn't see your discussion until yesterday. I just thought that it may be a good idea to answer some of your questions.
:Now it starts getting a little complicated.
:There's a fellow by the name of Steven Cullinane who, some time ago, put up a critique of Dharwadker's proof, saying essentially the same things that I said above. Cullinane started getting abused heavily by one Bob Stewart on various mailing lists. It took the form of an attack on Culinane's reputation. Cullinane describes the whole affair at http://www.log24.com/log05/050725-Crank.html. (Cullinane also has a very recent post (yesterday) describing the new tripod site.)
Yes, I did contribute to a discussion on sci.math with the title "Steven Cullinane is a Crank". It is because of a link on Cullinane's crank website that I saw Dharwadker's proof. I really like Dharwadker's proof and I wrote a review that hopefully presents the proof in a more accessible manner to people who are less familiar with some of the heavy-duty algebra and topology used in the proof. 
:(To be fair, I should also mention that Cullinane has in the past criticised some mathematicians that I know quite personally, and whom I think very highly of. I think his criticisms in those cases were a little vitriolic and not justified. But in the case of Dharwadker, I agree with him fully.)
What exactly do you agree with?
:Now it gets really interesting.
:The IP addresses used by the recent anonymous poster (203.101.*.*) are all in a range owned by an ISP in India (Mantra Online). This doesn't say much; India's a very big country, and that ISP appears to run in many major Indian cities.
What would you like to know about me? You can email me at bobstewart_III@hotmail.com. 
:Nevertheless, the only other contribution from such an IP address to Four color theorem occurred on 23/Sep/2004, which — surprise — involved an attempt to link to the geocities site containing Dharwadker's proof.
Why would you not want to link to the site? Do you have any vested interests?
:Even better: on the following day (24/Sep/2004), a similar IP address added a link to Roman surface, to an article on "Roman Surfaces" on the same website. That link is still there. I don't know anything about Roman Surfaces, so I have no opinion on whether the material on that topic at Dharwadker's site is quality or not. I suspect it's probably better than the stuff on the four colour theorem.
I still do not understand your opinion on Dharwadker's proof (the mathematics part of it).
:In fact, a search for "Dharwadker" on Wikipedia only turns up three pages: Four color theorem, Roman surface, and a user page User_talk:Andris. Andris is the editor who deleted the link to Dharwadker's page in 2004. The message on Andris' talk page is signed by one Clarence Williams, who posted to Andris's page with, again, the same IP address range. The name Clarence Williams is also used on http://www.angelfire.com/mi4/proof/, which is another link in the mini-web of Dharwadker-worship sites. As Cullinane points out, it's impossible to find out anything more about these people "Robert Stewart" and "Clarence Williams". And all of these sites are hosted by free-hosting companies like geocities and angelfire, which all reek of intended anonymity.
Oh, so this Andris had an opinion too? Mathematical or social?
My recommendation is not to take posts from this IP address range too seriously.
Dmharvey  Talk 14:48, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: And of course I'm not going to bother any more trying to demonstrate why his proof is flawed. I've wasted enough time on it already. Everybody is free to make up their own minds. If Four color theorem ends up with a link to Dharwadker's page, or any sympathetic description of the proof, so much the worse for Wikipedia's reputation. Dmharvey  Talk 15:09, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent anonymous poster is probably Dharwadker himself 

message: :Hey there Ashay, or Bob, or Clarence, or Dharwadker, or 203.101.*.*, or whatever your real name is. (This is starting to sound like Alice and Bob!) You're obviously pretty new to wikipedia, so let me try to explain a bit how it works.
My real name is Robert Stewart!
:It's a free-for-all. It's democracy at its absolute worst. So the deal is: if you can convince the community that your link deserves to be there, then good for you, you can have your link. I'll try to stop you for a while, but if the community shouts me down, I'll respect that.
Why do you presume? All I'm trying to do is answer some of your questions!
:However, it's going to be more difficult than just putting up a few pages on geocities or angelfire, or convincing Dr Matrix (or even the Canadian Mathematical Society— very impressive!). There are a fair number of decent mathematicians — actual real people who earn a living by doing and/or teaching mathematics — who hang around these pages, and I'm confident enough about my analysis of Dharwadker's proof that these people would come down on my side if it came to an edit war. These people care quite a lot about the accuracy of articles on Wikipedia, and you might discover that they are willing to put in more time than those who reviewed Dharwadker's article for the Math Forum.
I do have a page on tripod, but no affliation with the others that you mention! What is your analysis of Dharwadker's proof?
:If you do get your link, then I guess that's a major win for Dharwadker's marketing drive, since Wikipedia articles generally rate pretty highly on Google. On the other hand, if it turns out that the proof is wrong, and that over the course of a long debate the essential details of its incorrectness are recorded here, then that's a bad thing for Dharwadker, for much the same reason. It's very difficult to make stuff on Wikipedia disappear. That's not a threat; it's just a fact of life that you should take into account (on Dharwadker's behalf).
It's not my link! Dharwadker's proof is correct.
:I believe that I have already explained why I think the proof is incorrect. (And Jitse is still waiting for an answer to his question.) I no longer feel I have a responsibility towards you to explain my position on the mathematical content (or lack thereof). I've adequately discharged my responsiblity to the community, so now it's up to others to decide. 
The proof is correct. Jitse should look up for his answer.
:Incidentally, if you actually are Dharwadker, then a quck Google search turns up some professional information about you. But if you're Bob Stewart, then I think we are all entitled to a little bit more information about you than just a hotmail address.
I'm Bob! What info would you like?
:Now, I fully expect you to pepper my post with brief one-liners — that's cool, you're allowed to do that — but I would prefer, for the sake of other people trying to follow this discussion, that you add your reply below my entire post. Also, could you please indent your posts more sensibly in the future. And sign them, with Bob or something. Even better, sign up for an account. Check out what other people do around here, you'll get the idea.
I now have my very own wiki account! Yours truly, Bob.
:May I add that this is by far the most interesting exchange I've ever had in my time at Wikipedia.
The pleasure is all mine! Rstewart 
:Cheers, Dmharvey Talk 20:36, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  hey there bob 

message: A PROCLAMATION
:WHEREAS Dharwadker has refused to answer a simple question concerning his "New Proof of the Four Color Theorem"; and
:WHEREAS the question has been asked four times in succession; and
:WHEREAS Dharwadker employed deceptive means (including assuming multiple personas) to defend his "proof";
:THEREFORE let it be recognised that Dharwadker's proof is declared invalid and shall not be linked to by Wikipedia.
:(This proclamation shall be rendered void following any decision by Dharwadker (or any of his associates) to rejoin the discussion by answering the simple question posed above.)
Dmharvey  Talk 15:16, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Completed review of Dharwadker's proof 

message: In view of the discussion above between Jitse Niesen and "Bob Stewart" about the conditions under which systems of common representatives of left and right cosets exist, the following new claim of Ashay Dharwadker is of interest:
"Using the axiom of choice, we prove that given any group G and subgroup H, there always exists a common system of coset representatives of the left and right cosets of H in G."
This is from Dharwadker's new web page Common Systems of Coset Representatives.  Dharwadker's "proof" there is contradicted by a paper of Peter Schauenburg. For details, see my web page Coset Representatives: Two Opposing Views.  Cullinane 20:23, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Systems of coset representatives 

message: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Four-color-map.png
: Hi there Cahit. May I ask what the current state of that paper is? Has it been submitted to a journal for publication? Dmharvey  Talk 23:57, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  (by the way that was pretty cool. I was trying to figure out myself how to go about colouring the thing :-) Dmharvey  Talk 10:26, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Eleven times. Now, please answer my question, as stated above. Dmharvey  Talk 18:59, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Four-coloring of Jitse's second map 

message: : I have a few more questions about the structure and exposition of Dharwadker's "proof".
: (1) What is the purpose of introducing all the terminology and machinery of split extensions? In every case in Dharwadker's paper, the split extension being considered is really just a direct product. (Dharwadker says so himself.) Why not just use the simpler language of direct sums/products, which is no less expressive for the purposes Dharwadker has in mind, and is certainly more accessible to the reader? Is this a deliberate attempt at "proof obfuscation"?
: (2) Why is there no literature reference given for the result about the existence of simultaneous coset representatives (Lemma 8)? I notice that Rotman's book is listed in the references at the end of the paper, but this reference is not pointed out near the statement or proof of Lemma 8 itself. Is the reader supposed to read through all the references to work out whether the result is Dharwadker's or is already well-known? Either Dhawadker is assuming that the reader is already familiar with the result and knows where to look it up (in which case, why is he bothering writing out an (incidentally incorrect) proof?), or it looks as if he is trying to pass off the result as his own, which is, at the very least, highly unprofessional.
: (3) My earlier question, which I will not repeat here again, still stands unanswered. Dmharvey  Talk 11:46, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A few more questions for bob/Dharwadker