Dr. Z's Opinions

"Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art."
-- Charles McCabe

• Opinion 105: Interview with Shalosh B. Ekhad about Mikhail Gelfand's Interview With Yuri Manin (Interviewed by DZ) (Written: Nov. 11, 2009)
• Opinion 104: The Shocking State of Contemporary "Mathematics", and the Meta-Shocking Fact that Very Few People Are Shocked (Written: Oct. 28, 2009)
• Opinion 103: Israel Moiseevich Gelfand (Sept. 2, 1913-Oct. 5, 2009) (Written: Oct. 6, 2009)
• Opinion 102: Some Soul Reckoning on Yom Kippur: We Are NOTHING, and we Should Not Just SAY it, but truly BELIEVE It (and ACT accordingly) (Written: Sept. 30, 2009)
• Opinion 101: The Newly launched Journal Rejecta Mathematica IS a JOKE (but so are all math journals!) (Written: July 31, 2009)
• Opinion 100: On Human Supremacy and Why We Should Abandon It (Written: June 14, 2009)
• Opinion 99: We Need More People Like Aviezri Fraenkel, Who Taught me that Games are Math and Math is a Game (Written: May 22, 2009)
• Opinion 98: Don't Fall In Love With Your Model: The Cautionary Tale of my Recent proof that P=NP (Written: April 1, 2009)
• Opinion 97: Towards a Gentler and Less Formal Mathematical Narrative Style for Communicating Mathematics to Humans (Written: March 24, 2009)
• Opinion 96: I am so Sorry, my esteemed Colleagues, K. and L., for "Kicking you Out" of my Lecture, It was my fault for not Announcing At the Very Beginning That "No Outside Work" is allowed (Written: Feb. 22, 2009)
• Opinion 95: We need both Birds and Frogs, but Most of all we need good Beavers (Written: Feb. 15, 2009)
• Opinion 94: The Human Obsession With "Formal Proofs" is a Waste of the Computer's Time, and, Even More Regretfully, of Humans' Time (Written: Jan. 4, 2009)
• Opinion 93: An ode to George Andrews on his 70th Birthday (Written: Dec. 4, 2008)
• Opinion 92: Twenty Pieces of Advice for a Young (and also not so young) Mathematician (Written: Nov. 1, 2008)
• Opinion 91: If You Want Mathematical Truth, You Better Pay For It! (Written: July 31, 2008.)
• Opinion 90: Mathematics, Religion, and Contingent Beauty (Written: June 28, 2008.)
• Opinion 89: Mental Math Whiz [And Very Good Mathematician] Art Benjamin Should be Aware that not only his Night Job, but also some parts of his "Day Job" should be clearly labeled "For Entertainment Only" (Written: June 6, 2008.)
• Opinion 88: The American Mathematical Society's Ethics Committee Should Be Praised for Its Resolution to Ban Nazi Mathematicians, But It Went Too Far in "Disqualifying" Paul Erdös for using Amphetamines (Written: April 1, 2008 ).
• Opinion 87: Yuri Tschinkel, the Editor-In-Chief of the Journal Experimental Mathematics, Should Be Reminded That Proper Experimental Procedures Prohibit Faking Data in Order to "Establish" Pre-conceived Conclusions, and that Proper Editorial Procedures Prohibit Faking Referee Reports in Order to "Establish" Pre-conceived Editorial Decisions (Written: Feb. 2, 2008).
• Opinion 86: For God So Loved the World, that He gave [one of his most talented] begotten Sons, that Whoever Masters His Art of Computer-Programming Shall Not Perish and Crash, but have Everlastingly Bug-Free (yet with short-lasting running times) Programs (Written: Jan. 10, 2008).
• Opinion 85: We Should Continue To Be Ambivalent Towards Ambiguity in Mathematics: It Sure Did Some Good, But It Also Did (and Does) Lots of Harm (Written: Dec. 11, 2007).
• Opinion 84: Bye-Bye Understanding, Hello Meta-Understanding (Written: Oct. 6, 2007).
• Opinion 83: "Self-Deception" "Guru", Robert Trivers, is Deceiving Himself that he is a Scientist (Written: Sept. 18, 2007).
• Opinion 82: A Good Lemma is Worth a Thousand Theorems (Written: Aug. 14, 2007).
• Opinion 81: Because You Snubbed Others You Were Snubbed, and Those Who Snubbed You Shall Be Snubbed (Written: June 28, 2007).
• Opinion 80: Shalosh B. Ekhad's Reply to the Math Horizons "April Fools" Spoof Where It Was Extensively Quoted (or Rather Misquoted) (Written: May 20, 2007).
• Opinion 79: The Rutgers Mathematics Department Should Reverse Its Unfortunate Decision To Forbid The Sale of Mathematical Identities (Written: April 1 (!), 2007).
• Opinion 78: Music and Lyrics in Math Talks (Written: March 8, 2007).
• Opinion 77: Take This Math Journal and Shove It, Ain't Submitting there No More (Written: Feb. 3, 2007).
• Opinion 76: Why P Does Not Equal NP and Why Humans Will Never Prove It by Themselves (Written: Dec. 11, 2006).
• Opinion 75: James Joseph Sylvester: the GREATEST Mathematician of ALL TIMES (Written: Oct. 27, 2006).
• Opinion 74: Guoce Xin's "High-School Algebra" Approach to MacMahon's Partition Analysis: Yet Another Reason to Get Rid of Cauchy and Throw Out all that Epsilon-Delta Nonsense (Written: Sept. 17, 2006).
• Opinion 73: My Dear Comrade Boris Mityagin, This is [2006,USA] Not [1970,USSR], So Stop Grumbling About Your "Lazy" Students and Try to Be the Best Possible Teacher for THEM (Written: Aug. 2, 2006).
• Opinion 72: The Next Term in the Sequence: [Dog, Human, Mathematician, ...] is ``Computer-Programmer for Computer-Generated Mathematics'' (Written: June 11, 2006).
• Opinion 71: Why Are There So Many Outstanding Fifty-Year-Old Israeli Combinatorialists (and Computer Scientists, and Physicists and ...) (Written: Feb. 17, 2006).
• Opinion 70: A Case Study in Math (and Logic!) Abuse by a Social Scientist: Jon Elster's Critique of Backwards Induction (Written: Dec. 7, 2005).
• Opinion 69: Roll Over Platonism, Logicisim, Formalism, Intuitionism, Constructivism, Naturalism and Humanism! Here Comes Combinatorialism and Trivialism. (Written: Dec. 7, 2005).
• Opinion 68: Herren Geheimrat Hilbert und Prof. Dr. Cantor, I'd like to be Excused from your "Paradise": It is a Paradise of Fools, and besides feels more like Hell (Written: Nov. 23, 2005).
• Opinion 67: Why I liked Apostolos Doxiadis's Uncle Petros Ending so much better than David Auburn's Proof Ending (Written: Oct. 6 2005).
• Opinion 66: Fine-Tuning Chaitin's Doomsday Message: Intractability Suffices to Dump (Rigorous) Proofs (Written Sept. 13, 2005).
• Opinion 65: My Two Favorite Pedagogical Principles by Two of my Favorite Mathematicians (Written May 5, 2005).
• Opinion 64: Make New (Kinds of) Science But Keep the Old, One is Silver, the Other Gold [And their Fusion is Platinum] (Written April 25, 2005).
• Opinion 63: A Negative Review of Negative Reviews (Written Jan. 12, 2005).
• Opinion 62: Comparative MathGeniusOlogy: Why Grothendieck (b. 1928) "died" (in Erdos's sense) a Long Time Ago, While Gelfand (b. 1913) is Alive and Kicking (Mathematically!). (Written Nov. 20, 2004).
• Opinion 61: Rejected Authors of the World Unite, You have nothing to lose but your Anger (Written Nov. 1, 2004). [ appendix (written April 15, 2006)]
• Opinion 60: Still Like That Old-Time Blackboard Talk (Written May 20, 2004).
• Opinion 59: The Rutgers Math Dept.'s Executive Committee's Decision to Forbid Sleeping and Other Improper Behavior in Seminar and Colloquium Talks Should be Adopted by All Math Departments. (Written April 1 (!), 2004).
• Opinion 58: `I Saw Their Proof Now I'm a Believer': The Marcus-Tardos Proof of the Füredi-Hajnal and Stanley-Wilf Conjectures (Written Dec. 3, 2003).
• Opinion 57:The Unbearable Non-Triviality of "Trivial" Mathematics, and the even more Unbearable Triviality of "Non-Trivial" Mathematics. (Written Nov. 9 2003).
• Opinion 56:The DisUnity of Mathematics (Written Nov. 7, 2003).
• Opinion 55: Apostolos Doxiadis's Narrative Approach to Mathematics Education Should Be Embraced (Written May 27, 2003).
• Opinion 54: Amir Alexander's Narrative Approach to the History of Mathematics Makes Lots of Sense (Written May 23, 2003).
• Opinion 53: Frank Quinn's Rigor is Not as Rigorous as He Thinks (Written May 22, 2003).
• Opinion 52: The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics and arXiv.org Should Reverse their Unfair and Bigoted Decision Not to Publish On the So-Called Genome Code (Written April 1 (!), 2003).
• Opinion 51: It is Important to Keep Looking for Non-Computer Proofs of the Four-Color Theorem, BUT Not Because of the "Usual" Reasons. (Written Feb. 25, 2003).
• Opinion 50: Tim Gowers's `Mathematics-A Very Short Introduction' Should be Recommended Reading to the General Reader and Required Reading for Mathematicians. (Written Oct. 25, 2002).
• Opinion 49: Why is Ubiquity so Ubiquitous? (Written Oct. 25, 2002).
• Opinion 48: Some Suggestions to the IMU (International Math Union) about future ICMs(International Congress of Mathematicians) (Written Oct. 11, 2002).
• Opinion 47: Hello!, Sir Michael. Have You Ever Heard of the COMPUTER?, or of COMPUTER ALGEBRA? (Written June 11, 2002).
• Opinion 46: Mathematics is an OLD Person's GAME (Provided You Stay Away from the Mainstream) (Written May 24, 2002).
• Opinion 45: The Clay Foundation Should Pay Most of the Million-Dollar Prize to the Anonymous Genius Who Proved that the P vs. NP Problem is NP Hard (Written April 1 (!), 2002).
• Opinion 44: Two lessons I learned from Shalosh B. Ekhad, XIV's webbook(Written Nov. 1, 2001).
• Opinion 43: It is Time to Move On to Non-Euclidean Mathematics (Written Nov. 1, 2001).
• Opinion 42: Eric Weisstein's Math Treasure-Trove Should Be Re-Activated As Soon As Possible (Written Feb. 7, 2001).
• Opinion 41: The British Government Should Declassify Turing's Counterexample to the Riemann Hypothesis (Written APRIL 1, 2000)
• Opinion 40: Akalu Tefera: A Truly 3rd-Millenium Mathematics Ph.D.
• Opinion 39: Partial and Inconclusive Proofs are Welcome!
• Opinion 38: Be Skeptical of Skeptics and be Optimistic about Optimism (and Don't Tacitly Assume that ONLY the OTHER Guy Tacitly Assumes)
• Opinion 37: Guess What? Programming is Even More Fun Than Proving, and, More Importantly It Gives As Much, If Not More, Insight and Understanding
• Opinion 36: Don't Ask: What Can The Computer do for ME?, But Rather: What CAN I do for the COMPUTER?
• Opinion 35: Mathematicians Should Pay Attention to History and Philosophy of Math (In Particular to Leo Corry's Fascinating Work)
• Opinion 34: We Should Confess to Our Dumb Mistakes, in Order that Our Students should not feel bad about their Mistakes
• Opinion 33: We need a Leaner and Livelier American Math Society
• Opinion 32: Neither Mathematics, nor Mathematicians, Should be Blamed for the Hedge Funds' Debacle
• Opinion 31: Dave Bayer is Right When He Said That We Should Sometimes Forget the Sacrosanct Principle of Minimality
• Opinion 30: The Math Grad Program of U-Wisc, Madison, Should Be Emulated.
• Opinion 29: Beware of Colloquium Wise Guys and Smarty-Pants Referees and Grant Reviewers
• Opinion 28: Teaching Proofs to High-School Kids and Non-Math-Majors is Child-Abuse
• Opinion 27: With Opinions like Steven Krantz's It is Better To Be Unopinionated
• Opinion 26: Maple Should Be Made Upward-Compatible and Completely Source-Readable
• Opinion 25: An Ode to the Los Alamos XXX Archives and Farewell to AMS's Paper Mentality [With a PostScript (Written 7/22/99) On How the XXX can be still made much better.]
• Opinion 24: Math Reviews Should Stop Being Humanist and Longist
• Opinion 23: Immigrant Complex of a Middle-Aged in the Computer-Age
• Opinion 22: Our Students, and Even Us Professors, are like American Bar/Bat-Mitzvah Kids
• Opinion 21: The American Paradox: Why it Does Not Matter That The Average Student is So Bad at Math
• Opinion 20: Show up to the Weekly Colloquium, and Try to Behave
• Opiniomn 19: SIAM Review Should Not Cancel its Problem Section
• Opinion 18: Portrait of a Machino-Phobic as a Home(page)Less Mathematician
• Opinion 17: One Should Always Use the Paper Medium for Publishing
• Opinion 16: A propos the BIBLE CODE and its alleged Refutations: Ramsey Theory Has Already Proven that Harmony (may I say God) Exists.
• Opinion 15: Giving Tons of Homework and Grading Tough Should not Conflict with Using Computers in the Classroom
• Opinion 14: It Is Time to Kick Zero Out of the Elementary School Curriculum
• Opinion 13: Beware of Gloria Olive's Math Reviews
• Opinion 12: The Genetic Mating of the `Genetic(Parallel) Approach' to Thinking and the `Cartesian (Sequential) Approach' will Inherit the Earth
• Opinion 11: Great scientists, Lousy Philosophers
• Opinion 10: Gert Almkvist's One-Line Maple Proof of a Result that George Andrews believed proved Human-Supremacy
• Opinion 9: Buy Ten Copies of John Allen Paulos's masterpiece: `A mathematician reads a newspaper'
• Opinion 8: Organized Mathematics=Organized Crime
• Opinion 7: Mathematicians as Charlatans
• Opinion 6: Applied Creativity is Larger or Equal Than Pure Creativity
• Opinion 5: The perils of `Algebraic Combinatorics', Let's not get too gentrified
• Opinion 4: Let's Not be Religious Mathematical Fanatics Or: Vos Savant's criticism of the proof of FLT is not so dumb
• Opinion 3: The Demise of the Paper Referee .
• Opinion 2: People who think that Applied Math is Bad Math are bad mathematicians.
• Opinion 1: Topology, the slum of combinatorics , or: don't show off too much, your specialty will soon be trivialized.
• Opinion 0: What about quarter Einsteins?, (originally written July 25, 1967, translated and posted here July 25, 2009).