CC.Clive@UTEXAS-20.ARPA (01/13/84)
From: Clive Dawson <CC.Clive@UTEXAS-20.ARPA>
[Reprinted from the UTEXAS-20 bboard.]
There was a report last night on National Public Radio's All Things Considered
about a British mathematician named Arnold Arnold who claims to have
developed a new technique for dealing with multi-variable, high-dimensional
spaces. The method apparently makes generation of large prime numbers
very easy, and has applications in genetics, the many-body problem, orbital
mechanics, etc. Oh yeah, the proof to Fermat's Last Theorem falls out of
this as well! The guy apparently has no academic credentials, and refuses
to publish in the journals because he's interested in selling his technique.
There was another mathematician named Jeffrey Colby who had been allowed
to examine Arnold's work on the condition he didn't disclose anything.
He claims the technique is all it's claimed to be, and shows what can
be done when somebody starts from pure ignorance not clouded with some
of the preconceptions of a formal mathematical education.
If anybody hears more about this, please pass it along.
Clive