I have observed that for almost any subject, no matter how blatantly clear, there is a a group of people furiously pushing an alternative explanation to the accepted, "mainstream" account, declaring that there is some sort of dishonesty, brainwashing, or cover-up happening and that people should open their eyes to the truth.

Examples of this include the moon landing, 9/11, or, as a more extreme example, the Flat Earth Society.

Seeing Mort's e^(i*pi) = -1 proof in the other thread made me wonder -- are there any such groups/movements/dogmas that proclaim the falseness of something as "absolutely true" as math?

.9999 (repeating) does not equal 1.

π is exactly 3.

there are people who don't believe in the axiom of choice.

Hmm, I can think of a variety of academic disputes over certain unsolved problems in mathematics, the question of does P=NP? crops up every now and again. Most people think no, purely because no-one has found any polynomial-time algorithms for any NP-complete problem. But no-one has proved that P cannot equal NP. And if a polynomial-time algorithm can be found for one NP-complete problem, then it can be used for all NP-complete problems and transform the way we solve a whole class of problems - and it's perfectly possible it could be solved at any time, as Fermat's Last Theorem was proposed in 1637 and only solved in 1995. This is a problem that is in open discussion, with respected proponents on both sides but I don't suppose you'd call them 'groups' nor is this probably what you're thinking of. There is no mainstream accepted truth on this problem.

The controversy over String Theory lies not in its mathematical foundation, but rather any sort of practical testability - so that is more a controversy in Physics, not Mathematics. Hmm.
This is an interesting question, I'll think about it.

Echoman and Joncy: are there large-scale movements trying to promote these beliefs and declaring the accepted truth as designed to brainwash, etc.? (I don't know, I'm wondering)

Edit: I guess one example of what I'm thinking of is if there became a society of Friend14s proclaiming that F=mv

Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s people realized that mathematics was full of a bunch of hand-waving and bull****, so people started to formalize certain definitions (limits, derivatives) and introduce an axiomatic system.

When you learn mathematical reading you learn there are certain trigger phrases that should set off your bull**** alarm, so it's pretty hard to pass off a bad proof.

Haha, no.

The only webpage I can find that really cautions people that the AC is controversial is Conservapedia.

There's some debate surrounding quaternions as to whether or not they are actually needed, but I'm not sure if it falls into the realm of conspiracy theory. Unfortunately, I'm not well versed enough in them to give an argument for either side.

Supposedly there is a fringe group of mathematicians that believe in an imaginary number.

An? That would be quite the fringe group.

010001111 00 110000111 ....and suddenly you want a cookie....coincidence?

The only math movement I've heard was a rediculous claim that math was "fun". Aside from that I think math is pretty much true.

2+2=5

One and one and one is three

Jehovah's Witnesses believe math is the Devil's shortcut.

Seriously? It's funny because their entire lives would literally not be possible without it.

Math does not exist in this dojo.

Hey, quaternions are my favourite mathematical object! They use imaginary numbers and non-commutativity, both entirely abstract ideas, but can be used to calculate meaningful things in Physics. They even have a similar structure to a space-time metric. But (almost) everything that can be done with quaternions can now be done with vectors and matrices, and usually is. I tried to use quaternions instead of vectors for some representation theory of groups, but it's really easy to miss a minus sign and mess up everything. Vectors are much easier to check for mistakes.

It's not really controversy over two sides, more a semi-obsolete mathematical object that's been replaced by a better one yet somehow still feels quaint and comfortable. Quaternions are like a comfortable pair of old socks. If you have three socks. And your socks change depending on which order you put them on. And your socks are imaginary.

How has nobody said F=mv yet?

This place is going downhill.

EDIT: Just saw someone esle's edit. My faith in massassi is restored. Move along. <.<

F=mv is physics, though, not math.

But it's funny!

Hey guys, I got a 3 on the AP calc exam, I'm smart like you guys right?

I wish I was

I still get baffled by sqrt(x)/x=sqrt(x)

I'm not maths-boy any more. Too much time in a job where a certain set of equations dominate. I might (once babby Martyn has settled down) look through my old textbooks one of these days. I read Music of the Primes recently and it rekindled my interest in maths.

I, too, am baffled by this statement which is completely WRONG.

Maybe he's thinking of 1/sqrt(x) = sqrt(x)/x ? That's all I can think of. Or just x/sqrt(x) = sqrt(x), which wouldn't make sense if you did not know what a square root was, I guess.

hehe, squirt.

I thought we had forum functionality for this..

[sqrt]2+2[/sqrt]*x[sup]e[sup]2[/sup][/sup] [forall]A[/forall] [isin='a']A[/isin]


Edit: Yup.

girls = [sqrt]all evil[/sqrt]

huh. awesome

why does everyone always hate on math, i mean, it can be extremely frustrating when you dont understand it, but when you get it, its the greatest feeling ever, yep better than the best orgasm youve EVER HAD TIMES 9001, insert meme

I had a math teacher that taught us to recite the quadratic equation to the beat of "Pop Goes The Weasel". Sing along now!

x equals negative b, plus or minus the square root of b squared minus 4 AC all over 2A!

Mentat: I did that too!

Cool as that is, I didn't do it.

Until now <.<

If we want to go all historic on this topic, there are numerous examples where mathematics and kooky religious cults are intimately entwined. Pythagoras had many followers that learned not just his mathematics but also his particular brand of mysticism, believing in the transmigration of the soul and performing crazy rituals like any good cult. Pythagoreans were also vegetarians because they were worried about the transmigration of souls from animals to people. Pythagoras himself was terrified of beans, and popular myth tells that Pythagoras was chased by his enemies and could have escaped through a bean field, but said he would rather die than run through the bean field - at which point, he was killed.

They also believed in the 'apeiron' - an endless, indefinite mass that never ages and creates all that we perceive. When the limited (the peiron) inhales the unlimited (the apeiron), it causes a separation and the creation of a 'void'.


Hippasus of Metapontum is said to have been thrown off a boat by Pythagoreans, after his proof of the existence of irrational numbers - which very much upset their view that everything in the Universe could be reduced to whole numbers and their ratios.

Time Cube?

Bite me.

not really controversies about math, just controversies about things that involve math.

For example, somebody posted in just-another-truther-911-video (insert XKCD comic here) that all kinds of ways to add up things related to 9/11 would be either 911, 119 or the flight number. I suppose it's still up somewhere in the interwebs.

Hmm.

[QUOTE=Time Cube]-1 x -1= +1 is WRONG, it is academic stupidity and is evil. The educated stupid should acknowledge the natural antipodes of +1 x +1 = +1 and -1 x -1 = -1 exist as plus and minus values of opposite creation - depicted by opposite sexes and opposite hemispheres.[/QUOTE]

Let a field be an abelian group with respect to addition and multiplication, with the additional property that multiplication is distributive over addition. Let F be a field.

Let a in F. There exists an additive identity in F, denoted 0, such that a+0=a. There exists a multiplicative identity in F, denoted 1, such that a*1=a. There exists an additive inverse for all a, denoted -a, such that a+(-a)=0.

Lemma 1: [forall][isin=a]F[/isin][/forall], a*0=0
0 = 0 + 0
a0 = a(0 + 0)
By the distributive law,
a0 = a0 + a0
By the additive identity,
a0 + 0 = a0 + a0
By cancellation,
0 = a0

Theorem: -1 * -1 = 1
1 = 1
By the additive identity,
1 = 1 + 0
By Lemma 1,
1 = 1 + (-1)*0
By the additive inverse,
1 = 1 + (-1)*(1 + (-1))
By the distributive property,
1 = 1 + (-1)*(1) + (-1)(-1)
By the multiplicative identity,
1 = 1*1+(-1)*(1)+(-1)(-1)
By the distributive property,
1 = 1(1+(-1))+(-1)(-1)
By the additive inverse,
1 = 1*0+(-1)(-1)
By Lemma 1,
1 = (-1)(-1)

Q.E.D.

...not to say that it can't be disproved, just that there's math crazies, too.