From askey@math.wisc.edu Thu Oct 23 19:31:49 1997 Received: from conley.math.wisc.edu (conley.math.wisc.edu [144.92.166.10]) by euclid.math.temple.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA13334 for ; Thu, 23 Oct 1997 19:31:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: from riemann.math.wisc.edu.math.wisc.edu by conley.math.wisc.edu; id AA08155; 4.1/42; Thu, 23 Oct 1997 18:34:47 CDT From: Richard Askey Message-Id: <199710232334.AA08155@conley.math.wisc.edu> Subject: A second for a motion To: zeilberg@euclid.math.temple.edu (Doron Zeilberger) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 18:29:39 -0500 (CDT) In-Reply-To: <199710232306.TAA12862@euclid.math.temple.edu> from "Doron Zeilberger" at Oct 23, 97 07:06:11 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2426 Status: RO Let me second Doron Zeilberger's comments about the Problem Section in SIAM Review. He is wrong about Mehta's problem first appearing in SIAM Review's Problem Section, since it had appeared in a joint paper with Freeman Dyson. However, no one could solve it and it was completely missed by mathematicians in their paper in J. Math. Physics, so it was important to have it appear in SIAM Review to bring it to the attention of mathematicians who might have been able to solve it. Eventually, a direct evaluation of this integral was found which did not have to go to the more general integral of Selberg. The argument used to evaluate this integral directly was also used to evaluate some finite sums of real interest and the argument found by Selberg and a later argument of Aomoto, which appeared in SIAM J Math Anal do not work in the finite character sum case. Cecil Rousseau had sent me Mehta's problem to referee for SIAM Review, and I spent a fair amount of time trying to solve it. If I had not, it is not clear that I would have appreciated Selberg's integral as I did, and found some conjectured extensions of it. These were published in SIAM Jour. Math. Anal., and eventually proven. Thus a problem in a problem section can be useful even if no one is able to solve it because of its publication in a problem section. Doron's point about young people being attracted to a subject by problems they can work on is important. It might be useful for SIAM to set up a student problem section. I hope that the problems were not dropped because they do not correspond to the type of problem which the officers think arises in applied mathematics, for I can assure them that many of the problems involving special functions which have appeared in SIAM Review are similar to those that are sent to me by mathematicians and others who come across them in their applied work. Just today, someone was here to talk about inverse problems, and Lommel polynomials arose in a very natural way. Their orthogonality relation may be important in trying to solve the original inverse problem. The orthogonality appeared in a paper in Proc. Amer. Math. Soc., but it easily could have been a problem in SIAM Review. I do not agree with all of the arguments given by Zeilberger about why this problem section was stopped, but agree with him that this is unfortunate. Sincerely, Dick Askey askey@math.wisc.edu From jborwein@cecm.sfu.ca Thu Oct 23 19:36:22 1997 Received: from banzai.cecm.sfu.ca (jborwein@banzai.cecm.sfu.ca [142.58.12.67]) by euclid.math.temple.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA13361 for ; Thu, 23 Oct 1997 19:36:21 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from jborwein@localhost) by banzai.cecm.sfu.ca (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA11319; Thu, 23 Oct 1997 16:35:12 -0700 (PDT) From: Jonathan Borwein Message-Id: <199710232335.QAA11319@banzai.cecm.sfu.ca> Subject: Re: Don't Stop the Problems To: zeilberg@euclid.math.temple.edu (Doron Zeilberger) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 16:35:11 -0700 (PDT) Cc: bng@indyvax.iupui.edu, castro@kodak.com, gubins@annurev.org, gucken@cam.cornell.edu, herdman@sun.icam.vt.edu, mhw@research.att.com, petzold@cs.umn.edu, tmanteuf@boulder.colorado.edu, rousseac@hermes.mcsi.memst.edu In-Reply-To: <199710232306.TAA12862@euclid.math.temple.edu> from "Doron Zeilberger" at Oct 23, 97 07:06:11 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 516 Status: RO I would like to echo Doron Zeilberger's strong support for the SIAM problem section. Pleas also remember that many more people look at and discuss these problems than submit solutions. Yours sincerely, Jonathan Borwein Director Simon Fraser Centre for Experimental and Constructive Mathematics. To: SIAM Officers > > > Dear SIAM Officers, > Below is the lastest opinion in the Opinion column of my website. > I hope that you will reconsider getting rid of your problems. > > > Opinion 19 of Doron Zeilberger From njas@research.att.com Thu Oct 23 19:20:16 1997 Received: from rumor.research.att.com (rumor.research.att.com [192.20.225.9]) by euclid.math.temple.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA13226 for ; Thu, 23 Oct 1997 19:20:15 -0400 (EDT) Received: from research.att.com ([135.207.30.100]) by rumor; Thu Oct 23 19:15:58 EDT 1997 Received: from fry.research.att.com ([135.207.18.20]) by research-clone; Thu Oct 23 19:14:52 EDT 1997 Received: (from njas@localhost) by fry.research.att.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA06085; Thu, 23 Oct 1997 19:14:50 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 19:14:50 -0400 (EDT) From: "N. J. A. Sloane" Message-Id: <199710232314.TAA06085@fry.research.att.com> To: bng@indyvax.iupui.edu, castro@kodak.com, gubins@annurev.org, gucken@cam.cornell.edu, herdman@sun.icam.vt.edu, mhw@research.att.com, petzold@cs.umn.edu, tmanteuf@boulder.colorado.edu, zeilberg@euclid.math.temple.edu Cc: rousseac@hermes.mcsi.memst.edu Subject: Re: Don't Stop the Problems Content-Length: 323 Status: RO I completely agree with Doron. Neil J. A. Sloane, njas@research.att.com, Note new address: AT&T Research Labs, Room C233, 180 Park Ave, Florham Park, NJ 07932-0971 USA. Home page: http://www.research.att.com/~njas/ Office phone: (973) 360 8415; fax: (973) 360 8178 My home number has also changed, to (732) 828 6098 From andrew@sophie.math.uga.edu Fri Oct 24 10:11:40 1997 Received: from listmail.cc.uga.edu (listmail.cc.uga.edu [128.192.232.10]) by euclid.math.temple.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA23338 for ; Fri, 24 Oct 1997 10:11:39 -0400 (EDT) Received: from sophie.math.uga.edu by listmail.cc.uga.edu (LSMTP for Windows NT v1.1a) with SMTP id <0.0C82F900@listmail.cc.uga.edu>; Fri, 24 Oct 1997 10:10:26 -0400 Received: (from andrew@localhost) by sophie.math.uga.edu (8.8.5/8.8.3) id KAA23831 for zeilberg@euclid.math.temple.edu; Fri, 24 Oct 1997 10:07:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 10:07:19 -0400 (EDT) From: Andrew Granville Message-Id: <199710241407.KAA23831@sophie.math.uga.edu> To: zeilberg@euclid.math.temple.edu Subject: Re: Don't Stop the Problems X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Content-Length: 222 Status: RO Good; I'm glad that you are after them on this. Just because the editors now wear long trousers, it doesn't mean there aren't short trousered kids coming along who can't benefit from the fun of solving problems. Andrew From thk@wins.uva.nl Mon Oct 27 10:53:09 1997 Received: from mbox.wins.uva.nl (mbox.wins.uva.nl [146.50.16.20]) by euclid.math.temple.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA20273 for ; Mon, 27 Oct 1997 10:53:08 -0500 (EST) Received: from kalebas.wins.uva.nl by mbox.wins.uva.nl with ESMTP (sendmail 8.8.7/config 8.5). id QAA09048; Mon, 27 Oct 1997 16:51:45 +0100 (MET) Received: from localhost by kalebas.wins.uva.nl (sendmail 8.8.5/config 7.11). id QAA00893; Mon, 27 Oct 1997 16:51:41 +0100 (MET) Message-Id: <199710271551.QAA00893@kalebas.wins.uva.nl> Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 16:51:41 +0100 (MET) From: thk@wins.uva.nl (Tom H. Koornwinder) X-Organisation: Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics & Astronomy University of Amsterdam Plantage Muidergracht 24 NL-1018 TV Amsterdam The Netherlands X-Phone: +31 20 525 5200 X-Fax: +31 20 525 5101 To: zeilberg@euclid.math.temple.edu Subject: Re: Don't Stop the Problems Cc: muldoon@mathstat.yorku.ca Content-Length: 179 Status: RO Dear Doron, Thanks for your eloquent and convincing call for preserving the Problems in SIAM Review. I will include your Opinion in the next issue of OP-SF Net. Best regards, Tom From amo@research.att.com Mon Oct 27 14:08:21 1997 Received: from rumor.research.att.com (rumor.research.att.com [192.20.225.9]) by euclid.math.temple.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA26385 for ; Mon, 27 Oct 1997 14:08:19 -0500 (EST) Received: from research.att.com ([135.207.30.100]) by rumor; Mon Oct 27 14:03:54 EST 1997 Received: from fry.research.att.com ([135.207.18.20]) by research-clone; Mon Oct 27 14:02:29 EST 1997 Received: (from amo@localhost) by fry.research.att.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA17855 for zeilberg@euclid.math.temple.edu; Mon, 27 Oct 1997 14:02:28 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 14:02:28 -0500 (EST) From: Andrew Odlyzko Message-Id: <199710271902.OAA17855@fry.research.att.com> To: zeilberg@euclid.math.temple.edu Subject: Re: Don't Stop the Problems Content-Length: 301 Status: RO Dear Doron, I agree completely with your opinion. Have you received any responses to your message? If there really is a serious danger to the Problems Section, I would be happy to write in support of it, and am sure various of my colleagues would also be willing to pitch in. Best regards, Andrew From Peter.Paule@risc.uni-linz.ac.at Tue Oct 28 13:58:36 1997 Received: from zeder (zeder.risc.uni-linz.ac.at [193.170.36.33]) by euclid.math.temple.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA19130 for ; Tue, 28 Oct 1997 13:58:25 -0500 (EST) Received: by zeder id AA06043 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for zeilberg@euclid.math.temple.edu); Tue, 28 Oct 1997 19:56:55 +0100 Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 19:56:55 +0100 From: Peter Paule Message-Id: <199710281856.AA06043@zeder> To: rousseac@hermes.mcsi.memst.edu Subject: Re: Don't Stop the Problems Cc: zeilberg@euclid.math.temple.edu Content-Length: 337 Status: RO Dear Doctor Rousseau, I am writing in order to fully support Doron Zeilberger's "Opinion 19" - "SIAM Review Should Not Cancel its Problem Section". In case you are the wrong address for my letter, please be so kind to let me know to whom this support letter should be sent. Best thanks in advance, and best wishes, Peter Paule