Adinkra and Gnomon: The Necessary Bipartite Graph by Michael Jeub

Georgina,

This is not T H Ray and you misinterpret my intentions. I never meant to patronize you. I must admit that, with so many essays to read, I did not carefully read all of your responses to Mr. Jeub, only enough to believe that you took him seriously. Sadly, it is my belief that he had three intentions in writing this essay; to mock and ridicule those whom he despises, to display his cleverness to those who empathize with him, and to dupe the uninitiated. His refusal to comment in this forum, IMO means that his essay was all the commentary he needed. I chose to remain anonymous because it seemed a rather awkward and embarrassing situation. I have obviously offended you, so I apologize.

You wrote: "Too often scientist deliberately put up barriers to effective communication rather than trying to explain their work as lucidly as possible. Of course some technical language is require to avoid overly long simple English descriptions."

I couldn't agree more. I am not a professional, only somebody who aspires to be taken seriously. I believe I have unique and creative ideas and a passion to understand the world, yet find it difficult to communicate in general, particularly a field that chooses mathematics over meaning and a penchant for unnecessary formality. Unfortunately, these are the hurdles we must face to have our ideas seriously considered.

There are many things that I envy about Mr. Jeub. He is obviously a genius, has many talents, and is much more educated than I. I greatly appreciated his humor, because I also identified with his frustration. But I also pity him, for IMO he has given up on the system or the system has failed him. I do not know the journey which has lead him to produce a farce rather than an authentic essay, but it seems like a huge waste of talent. I, for one, have not given up.

Anonymous,

Thank you for that clarification, and letting T H Ray off the hook. Apology accepted. If the intention was, as you say, 3 fold that alone is remarkable. Even without considering the literary style or any other facet of the work. Most mere mortals would consider 2 birds with 1 stone a worthy accomplishment.

Hi Georgina,

I have not previously commented here. Since the cat about the hoax-like nature of this paper is out of the bag, I'll share my opinion: I strongly suspect that this paper was written by a random paper generator. Here is one you can try out for yourself: http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/

My interpretation of the purpose of this paper is more benign than that of anonymous: I have already seen other entries in this contest which clearly demonstrate that when a paper looks like it was professionally written and throws around a lot of physics buzzwords, it tends to garner approving comments by anyone who does not read it carefully, and this can apply whether they have the credentials to know better or not. I see this paper as a humorous attempt to prod people to read the papers submitted to this contest more carefully and really try to understand what they assert, rather than just imbibe the prose without further reflection of its content. And I am all for that! After all, the primary purpose of this contest, as I understand it, is to open a venue for new useful ideas to be introduced into mainstream science from authors who are not necessarily in the mainstream. And I don't see how regarding a work like the essay by 'Michael Jeub' as a piece of art serves this purpose.

Amusingly, one of the papers entered in this contest quotes a book by the Bogdanovs (google if you haven't heard about them) as a reference, and its author seems to have learned his lessons from them very well.

Armin

Armin,

Thanks, for your input. I had no idea these random paper generators existed. Your interpretation is more likely than mine. For someone to have both the vocabulary and the writing ability as "Mr. Jeub" in retrospect doesn't seem as plausible now. It sure did read like an attack on the establishment and M Theory in particular. I know a lot of people who hold contempt for it. Maybe my interpretation says more about me than the possibly fictional author.

Fortunately, I stayed,

Anonymous

I did not find or write such article. In fact this is the first article or essay for publication I've ever written. I've flagged your post as inappropriate.

It's great to be able to access papers and ideas of real researchers, even if the topic is "over your head" if you are interested, just keep on reading and you will find opportunity to begin the great task remaining before you. One must learn things from multiple angles and laterally.

No parody intended. The subject is very rich and I enjoy the feedback, and would like to answer specifically what parts you mak think are a hoax. String theory allows for paradoxy, so yes, parody too, a minimalist puppet show on our small planet projected in all directions....

The chinese have this idea that the brain or head is a ball of mud at the top of a pyramid, I kind of like that topology when thinking about human thought, and the stupid rocks that prop it up. But I think about it in a nice way, not in bad spirit.

Thankyou for the feedback. It is encouraging to get some response like this because of the difficulties I have had in getting feedback. My friends and family did not say too much if anything about the essay, so when I read your post It made me happy in getting or aspiring to write things. I love math and physics, but have no demonstrated abilities in them. I desire to write a textbook on the various nodes and modes of dealing with math and physics. For me, math and physics are the same thing, except that the numbers have been abused and misplaced where various representations may serve as building blocks. Physics is that art of approximation, like cartography or other sciences of relativity. You noticed that I am disappointed with the public education I received in my early years. In sixth grade I was ready to learn complicated things and wanted to know about mitochondria. I did not care that they were the powerhouses of the cell, I wanted a tour of the plant! The textbooks and the learning I had was dumbed down at the time I needed to be cultivated in mathematics. My essay reflects the fact of this late start into these endeavors. As I practice, I will get better at not only appreciating the sciences, but also transmission of the learning.

I had waited as long as possible to get some feedback from family and friends about my essay, but none was forthcoming. You have made up for this void. Indeed I was drowned and found it very slow in coming back to the surface. My favorite classic paper is one by Bernoulli on the vibration of strings, and I am only beginning to get the shadow of the idea of its implications. I used it as a base to conceptualize string theory into one that can handle other objects besides the vibration of physical strings, other things with a frequency (that is the reciprocal of wavelength) such as pendulums. It was interesting to find things out about the seconds pendulum and how it was able to become a gnomon of the gravitational force in its local frame. The degree of arc, the state space it starts in has a strict dependency at 90 degrees and 45 degrees intervals and I made these kinds of comparisons. It was interesting. Some of this would mean that there is a way of measuring the degree of gross chaos using string theory. There is at the heart of these subjects a quintessence in the calculus of the variations. I'm going to be reading up on all these things to refine my understanding. As to the sketches, I will need to borrow someones computer as I have an incompatible scanner situation. If you would like to see my cartoons, I'll try to attach them in another post in the coming weeks.

I am glad to have the criticism. I will have to look up IMO, but I think it means in my humble opinion. I am your most humble and obedient servant. I did include some humor in the essay but I only sprinkled. I did not want the whole thing to be a joke or a farce. I am serious, and I want to write a better textbook for young people that will empower them to take engineering and large data sets to new heights. I also want to make theory the object of learning and how to manipulate it an create it so that everyone can model rather than use givens of someone else.

Is this post made by an "agent provocateur"? If so, excellent job!

Armin, I have worked very hard at trying to understand stuff. I don't see how you can think of my contribution to this contest as an attack. I love M-theory, and am a fan of Ed Witten. I was hoping that my essay would have some value as promoting a degree of agreeableness. My essay I would hope fits with string theoretical approches to open up modeling and the power of this theory in developing the most robust of sciences.

I forgot to answer the clavichord bit. My first clavichord was made from a kit and that one is still on the net as the Burton. That was really not so good of a design, but the kit was there and it was a learning experience. Then I made some other kits and rebuilt a harpsichord which I later dismantled to rebuild again some day. The clavichord I made from a museum drawing is one that is in the Yale collection, a small triple fretted instrument. The tangents in the middle of each fretted note need to bend or spread a certain amount, diverging from each middle tone key, with this in mind it was much easier to tune it after the strings were tensioned and tuned. I found this procedure much easier than trying to follow all the tangent placements that were on the drawing, and made sense to me mathematically finally after living with the instrument for years, learning or appreciating the aspects of its design. Tuning every note adjacent to the tuned string worked better than I thought it would. Each note was like a wavelet contributing to a scalogram of the whole instrument. The tuning and bending of the tangents is not as strange or mysterious or "frettful" of an experience. If I were to place the tangents again I would not follow the drawing at all and place each one in the center of the key, and then diverge them systematically as needed to sound the adjacent half step notes. My next project is to build a dulce melos based on a drawing by Arno. De Zwolle. The clavichord is not as simple of a physical object, and its structure is the device for making the sounds rather than just a base or a platform for the device to reside inside of.

Georgina,

I never saw this site before today. I have never written an anonymous post on FQXi (in fact, I don't recall ever writing an anonymous post anywhere). If you think I directed you here, be assured that it was an imposter, not I.

But so far as Michael Jeub goes -- ROTFL!

Tom

Michael

Brilliant - ranks alongside Tommy Gilbertson as an enjoyable respite. But I particularly warmed to your;

"This led to the most complex notion of "length" as being quite useless unless it is first normalized, and then re-normalized."

I hope a mind like yours might like mine, where I've hidden a real toroid black hole, in plain view, with photographic evidence, and am now announcing a prize to the first who spots it and doesn't get sucked in.

I hope you can read it and comment. http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/803

Stay cool

Peter

Well I am sure they are all beautiful instruments. My piano restoration project is an ugly, thumping brute by comparison. I admire the function of its mechanism but also despise it, having spent so much time tending to and adjusting it. It would take quite some time for me to forget the tedium. I now better understand why old pianos are frequently discarded rather than restored. Perhaps I chose the wrong instrument. Though the naked hammer and damper mechanism did look pretty cool sitting on the table and is fun to play with. It reminds me a bit of a Theo jansen's walking machines.link:www.youtube.com/watch?v=b694exl_oZo]Walking sculpture.[/link]

Tom,

I apologise for jumping to the conclusion that you were Anonymous. On checking it was an Anonymous poster that referred me here, after your "signed" message to me, in the same conversation box. Such mistaken identity can occur when people choose to be Anonymous.

Anonymous did say that he/she was not Tom and I thanked Anonymous for letting you off the hook. So we all know Anonymous is not you. Though both he/she and you seem to find something hilarious. So you have something in common.

It is interesting to me that a number of contributors have chosen to be Anonymous on this particular thread.

Hi Armin,

I have found this work intriguing unlike many of the other highly complex papers that are just utterly incomprehensible and completely un-intriguing and frankly dull to a non specialist such as myself. This essay is very content rich but is I think not ultimately indecipherable or nonsensical.

It would have helped if the author had more clearly explained the raison d'etre of the essay in the abstract. Though that would also have removed some of the intrigue and interest for me. Guessing is not the best approach but making the effort to do serious research is time consuming, so having the author explain is a short cut.

Now that Michael Jeub has replied to some of the comments and elsewhere on the site, it is clear that he has a particular and unusual style of communicating that includes a lot of detail and skill in the use of language. It may be a reflection of his thinking style. That linguistic skill is demonstrated in the essay as well.It is not mere conglomerated content.

I see no reason why such an essay should not be included in the competition and readers and judges can make of it what they will.It did say in the details about the competition that the essay should be accessible to a well educated but non specialist audience and they suggested a new scientist article to be the cut off in difficulty. This essay would seem to fall outside of that suggested level but so do other essays in the competition, in my opinion.

Georgina

Here is that link written correctly Walking sculpture Brilliant things.

Without H the opinion is not so humble and merely stated as opinion rather than fact.