4 ms·

I just learned about Math 55 and would trade plenty to teach that course. The problem here is that Mochizuki uses too many German Nazi references. Those peopl

I just learned about Math 55 and would trade plenty to teach that course. The problem here is that Mochizuki uses too many German Nazi references. Those people had no academic integrity whatsoever; and their works are exclusively stolen, through war crimes and the Holocaust. After you do the right thing, and translate Mochizuki's nomenclature into French and Slavic; the proof is no longer valid, and the problem is negligible. For the record, Oswald Teichmüller is a fraudulent Nazi war criminal who robbed Felix Hausdorff during the Holocaust. The undeniable fact that Oswald Teichmüller is solely published in a journal of racial propaganda makes Mochizuki's choice of terminology questionable at the very least. The fact that I am being suppressed for this demonstrates unambiguously that Mochizuki's proof is nothing more than media hype and puffery.

late2part 11y ago
I dont understand what you mean. Can you clarify?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- williamjennings 11y ago
  Oswald Teichmüller stole technical documents from Felix Hausdorff and then published the written material in a Nazi pseudoscience journal, alongside racial propaganda. It is therefore incorrect to cite Oswald Teichmüller, because his words are criminal plagiarism presented in an abhorrent context.
MatekCopatek 11y ago
I can agree with this being extremely problematic in a political sense - it's horribly wrong to rip someone off, even more so by robbing them during wartime. Quoting such stolen material is a kind of passive support and should not be tolerated. BUT - how does that affect it from a purely scientific perspective? Is the quoted stolen material also incorrect? Because it would be equally bad, IMHO, to ignore an important and correct scientific finding just because it was produced in an unacceptable way. If I exaggerate a bit, it's similar to someone experimenting on babies to discover a cure for AIDS - sure, they're a terrible person and should not receive praise/compensation for their discovery, their actions should be condemned. But should we also throw away the discovered cure?
- williamjennings 11y ago
  It is not simply problematic in a political sense, it is is of ethical and ontological significance. The misdeed of "ripping someone off" is only rectified when society recognizes the true ownership had by the victim and rejects the title had by the perpetrator. Quotation and Citation of plagiarized material demonstrates misunderstanding of the subject because it is a mistake with regards to the ontology of an idea. But - the technical perspective is different from the scientific perspective. One writer may be technically correct in his or her own jargon, but the words do not merit publication because they are not comprehensible or reproducible. The quoted stolen material is technically and scientifically incorrect because discovery is the induction of titles by origin. The reason that we have many things named after people is so we can easily check the history of how, when, where, and why they were discovered. Findings are made unacceptable when they are produced in an unscientific way. Mochizuki is scientifically and technically incorrect because his citations are unacceptable and inaccurate. Your hyperbole about "throwing away the cure" does not apply because this is a situation which involves at least two competing people. As a better simile, imagine that two scientists are hoping to cure aids. One scientist decides to study how white blood cells kill viruses, and why the human immunodeficiency virus surpasses host defenses. The other scientist decides to directly experiment with a variety of chemicals on babies and refugees. Even if both scientists succeed, only the first scientist deserves credit because that work is dignified and reproducible. Those findings are a result which others can build upon and replicate. The second scientist deserves no credit because that work is unethical and irreproducible. Those findings are a result which others cannot build upon nor reproduce. That way, as a society we reward the scientist whose work is more valuable and less expensive to undertake.
late2part 11y ago
Sounds to me like you are putting a political-correctness test or lens on what should be a mathematical and science based issue. Shame on you for bringing subjective issues into an objective issue.
- williamjennings 11y ago
  Seems to me that you are ignoring the importance of academic integrity in the context of a mathematical discussion. Shame on you for sympathizing with the Wehrmacht!
ashleyblackmore 11y ago
Interesting how Teichmueller has a bunch of stuff named after him, yet there's very little information about him to be had. There are some references on Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/scholar?q=%22o+teichmueller%22&btnG=&hl=de&as_sdt=0%2C5 https://scholar.google.de/scholar?q=%22o+teichmueller%22&btn.... He is certainly published in more than a single journal, however. However there are no references to him on his "discoveries". Note the lack of a history section https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teichm%C3%BCller_space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teichm%C3%BCller_space and compare that to the section on Hilbert space: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert_space#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert_space#History On the other hand, Felix Hausdorff, who also appears to have worked in the same field (though topology is probably a far broader field than I can understand) has plenty of information readily available. This is conjecture, but the mere lack of solid information on Teichmueller could lend credence to some of what you say. There is a book about mathematics under the Nazis, which would likely cover a lot of ground http://www.jstor.org/stable/20453494?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents http://www.jstor.org/stable/20453494?seq=1#page_scan_tab_con... Anyway, bit of a mystery ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- williamjennings 11y ago
  The interesting thing is that the stuff named after O. Teichmueller is originally named after other mathematicians. Those journals all have the same name until the postwar period when they become taboo to cite. The names were changed and some of the propaganda was removed during the reconstruction of Germany. However, the unreferenced and politically reprehensible nature of Teichmueller is just reasons for his extirpation from the mathematical literature. It is the best way to do justice to his German contemporaries, some of whom were Holocaust victims. Consider Felix Hausdorff as the injured party who worked on exactly the same subject of topological metric spaces. The lack of information on Teichmueller is because his record is obscene, and thusly being curtailed. He would have been found guilty of war crimes had he survived the war. The problem with Mathematics under the Nazis is that most academics engaged in plagiarism, and justified the theft with false notions of racial purity. The draconian Nazi party forced their best minds to emigrate, and the list those who fled includes: Herman Weyl, Kurt Friedrich Gödel, Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl, Emmy Noether, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, John von Neumann, Stanislaw Ulam, Wolfgang Pauli, and Max Born. Topology is not too difficult to understand, it is only esoteric. The historiography of brutal dictatorships is both arduous and mysterious. I am only familiar with the ten names because I have enjoyed citing them in my work. The most inspiring part of the story is that the intellectual migrants were employed in the research and development of weapons that would later defeat Nazism.
dang 11y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10750422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10750422 and marked it off-topic.
- williamjennings 11y ago
  Please stop.

late2part 11y ago

I dont understand what you mean. Can you clarify?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
williamjennings 11y ago
Oswald Teichmüller stole technical documents from Felix Hausdorff and then published the written material in a Nazi pseudoscience journal, alongside racial propaganda. It is therefore incorrect to cite Oswald Teichmüller, because his words are criminal plagiarism presented in an abhorrent context.

MatekCopatek 11y ago

I can agree with this being extremely problematic in a political sense - it's horribly wrong to rip someone off, even more so by robbing them during wartime. Quoting such stolen material is a kind of passive support and should not be tolerated. BUT - how does that affect it from a purely scientific perspective? Is the quoted stolen material also incorrect? Because it would be equally bad, IMHO, to ignore an important and correct scientific finding just because it was produced in an unacceptable way. If I exaggerate a bit, it's similar to someone experimenting on babies to discover a cure for AIDS - sure, they're a terrible person and should not receive praise/compensation for their discovery, their actions should be condemned. But should we also throw away the discovered cure?

williamjennings 11y ago
It is not simply problematic in a political sense, it is is of ethical and ontological significance. The misdeed of "ripping someone off" is only rectified when society recognizes the true ownership had by the victim and rejects the title had by the perpetrator. Quotation and Citation of plagiarized material demonstrates misunderstanding of the subject because it is a mistake with regards to the ontology of an idea. But - the technical perspective is different from the scientific perspective. One writer may be technically correct in his or her own jargon, but the words do not merit publication because they are not comprehensible or reproducible. The quoted stolen material is technically and scientifically incorrect because discovery is the induction of titles by origin. The reason that we have many things named after people is so we can easily check the history of how, when, where, and why they were discovered. Findings are made unacceptable when they are produced in an unscientific way. Mochizuki is scientifically and technically incorrect because his citations are unacceptable and inaccurate. Your hyperbole about "throwing away the cure" does not apply because this is a situation which involves at least two competing people. As a better simile, imagine that two scientists are hoping to cure aids. One scientist decides to study how white blood cells kill viruses, and why the human immunodeficiency virus surpasses host defenses. The other scientist decides to directly experiment with a variety of chemicals on babies and refugees. Even if both scientists succeed, only the first scientist deserves credit because that work is dignified and reproducible. Those findings are a result which others can build upon and replicate. The second scientist deserves no credit because that work is unethical and irreproducible. Those findings are a result which others cannot build upon nor reproduce. That way, as a society we reward the scientist whose work is more valuable and less expensive to undertake.

late2part 11y ago

Sounds to me like you are putting a political-correctness test or lens on what should be a mathematical and science based issue. Shame on you for bringing subjective issues into an objective issue.

williamjennings 11y ago
Seems to me that you are ignoring the importance of academic integrity in the context of a mathematical discussion. Shame on you for sympathizing with the Wehrmacht!

ashleyblackmore 11y ago

Interesting how Teichmueller has a bunch of stuff named after him, yet there's very little information about him to be had. There are some references on Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/scholar?q=%22o+teichmueller%22&btnG=&hl=de&as_sdt=0%2C5 https://scholar.google.de/scholar?q=%22o+teichmueller%22&btn.... He is certainly published in more than a single journal, however. However there are no references to him on his "discoveries". Note the lack of a history section https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teichm%C3%BCller_space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teichm%C3%BCller_space and compare that to the section on Hilbert space: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert_space#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert_space#History On the other hand, Felix Hausdorff, who also appears to have worked in the same field (though topology is probably a far broader field than I can understand) has plenty of information readily available. This is conjecture, but the mere lack of solid information on Teichmueller could lend credence to some of what you say. There is a book about mathematics under the Nazis, which would likely cover a lot of ground http://www.jstor.org/stable/20453494?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents http://www.jstor.org/stable/20453494?seq=1#page_scan_tab_con... Anyway, bit of a mystery ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

williamjennings 11y ago
The interesting thing is that the stuff named after O. Teichmueller is originally named after other mathematicians. Those journals all have the same name until the postwar period when they become taboo to cite. The names were changed and some of the propaganda was removed during the reconstruction of Germany. However, the unreferenced and politically reprehensible nature of Teichmueller is just reasons for his extirpation from the mathematical literature. It is the best way to do justice to his German contemporaries, some of whom were Holocaust victims. Consider Felix Hausdorff as the injured party who worked on exactly the same subject of topological metric spaces. The lack of information on Teichmueller is because his record is obscene, and thusly being curtailed. He would have been found guilty of war crimes had he survived the war. The problem with Mathematics under the Nazis is that most academics engaged in plagiarism, and justified the theft with false notions of racial purity. The draconian Nazi party forced their best minds to emigrate, and the list those who fled includes: Herman Weyl, Kurt Friedrich Gödel, Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl, Emmy Noether, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, John von Neumann, Stanislaw Ulam, Wolfgang Pauli, and Max Born. Topology is not too difficult to understand, it is only esoteric. The historiography of brutal dictatorships is both arduous and mysterious. I am only familiar with the ten names because I have enjoyed citing them in my work. The most inspiring part of the story is that the intellectual migrants were employed in the research and development of weapons that would later defeat Nazism.

dang 11y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10750422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10750422 and marked it off-topic.

williamjennings 11y ago
Please stop.