Dr. Z's Opinions

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

• Opinion 120: Tim Gowers's Proposed Boycott on Elsevier Only Makes Sense If It is Extended To All Subscription, Non-Free, Journals, Including those of the so-called "Non-Profit" American Mathematical Society (That is (at least) As Greedy As Private Publishers) (Written: Jan. 29, 2012)
• Opinion 119: Farewell to "W" (Herbert Saul Wilf), a True VISIONARY for Whom EVERYTHING was INTERTWINED (Written: Jan. 20, 2012)
• Opinion 118: Even Pure Mathematics Has Its Share of Empty Suits (Written: Oct. 21 2011)
• Opinion 117: People Should Learn to Share their Ideas, and Make their Funded Grant Proposals Public (and an Efficient Algorithm for convincing those that refuse) (Written: June 29, 2011)
• Opinion 116: David John Wilson's Masters Essay: A Paradigm of the Future Ideal Mathematical Exposition (Written: May 1, 2011)
• Opinion 115: The Mathematical Association of America did the Right Thing When It Recommended to the US Department of Education to Illegalize the Teaching of Calculus Except for Physics and Engineering Majors (Written: April 1, 2011)
• Opinion 114: Philippe FLAJOLET (Dec. 1, 1948-March 22, 2011): The SINGULAR Combinatorialist Who Made Analysis Fun! (Written: March 29, 2011)
• Opinion 113: Mathematics is Indeed a Religion, But It has too Many Sects! Let's Unite Under the New God of Experimental Mathematics (Written: Jan. 14, 2011)
• Opinion 112: On Human Hypocrisy (and Human-Centric Bigotry): A Typical Computer-Assisted Proof is Far More Rigorous (and Certain!, and Deeper!) than a typical Human-Generated Proof, (and some suggestions on how to improve the reliability of published mathematics in "peer"-reviewed journals) (Written: Oct. 5, 2010)
• Opinion 111: Congratulations Elon Lindenstrauss, Ngo Bao Chau, Stas Smirnov, and Cedric Villani for winning a 2010 Fields Medal, but PLEASE, don't spend the next 40 years of your life continuing to do the same old (of course very deep but SO) BORING stuff, but instead use your great talents to do research in INTERESTING mathematics (that not only Terry Tao can understand, but ALSO the rest of us). (Written: Aug. 25, 2010)
• Opinion 110: (Human-Made) Mathematics is Necessarily Contingent, as I Realized on reading Amir Alexander's masterpiece "Duel at Dawn" (Written: April 25, 2010)
• Opinion 109: [removed by the request of Gil Kalai, who believed that it was unjust] (Written: April 1, 2010)
• Opinion 108: ...The feeling is mutual: I Feel Sorry for Infinitarian Hugh Woodin for Feeling Sorry for Finitists Like Myself! (And the "Lowly" Finite is MUCH more Beautiful than any "Infinite") (Written: March 16, 2010)
• Opinion 107: Any Faculty Member who Votes Against Granting Tenure to a Colleague "Deserves to be Shot" (Written: Feb. 16, 2010)
• Opinion 106: How To Make the Joint Mathematical Meetings Much Better with Minimal Effort (Written: Jan. 20, 2010)
• 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).