Re: rant on the morality of confidentiality

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

At 3:00 PM -0800 1/10/98, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
>[scientists]
>>"Name me one..."? How about Gauss, who didn't publish many of his results.
>>Or, of course, Fermat, ironically linked to Wiles.
>
>the mathematical establishment does not look with favor on Gauss'
>secrecy. the commentary is generally that it is a shame he was

Doesn't matter how the establishment (whatever that might be) looked on him
or not...you challenged me to name _one_ example, and I named several. Oh,
and it is not true as you later claim that all of my examples "eventually
published" all of their findings. Fermat did not, Gauss did not.

My main point has been to refute your notion that any one who elects not to
publish in the open literature cannot be a scientist. I know of many
scientists who could not publish, or chose not to for various reasons.

I mentioned the Manhattan Project scientists. (Choate made some bizarre
claim after this mention that all of the science was known in the 20 and
30s, and that no actual science was done by MP "engineers" and
"technicians." Might be a surprise to Ulam, Teller, von Neumann, and all
the others who worked in secrecy on the atom bomb, then the hydrogen bomb,
and so on.)

Oh, and what of all the many fine Russian scientists of this century,
nearly all restricted in what they could publish? Because they could not
submit their work to open publication were they not doing science?

The point being that open publication is only a part of the methodology of
doing science, and a fairly recent one, too.

>as for Fermat, -- I find it interesting you are now mentioning various
>mathematicians; have never heard you refer to them. Fermat sent letters

I know Detweiler that you hang on my every word, compiling indices of what
I and my tentacles have been beaming out to you, but I don't track such
trivia about whether or not I have ever mentioned mathematicians. I would
asssume I have, as I recall discussing von Neumann, Hadamard, and other
mathematicians over the years.

But I'll leave it to you to search the archives over the past 5 years....

>hee, hee.
>there are many more snakes and conspiracies
>in politics than there are in all of cyberspace.

You ought to know.

--Tim May and his Tentacles

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