<<In a message dated 1/6/2009 4:38:42 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, cbeckhorn@fastmail.fm writes:
It isn't necessary to go so far back. A large part of the important mathematics of the 1980s and 1990s does not appear in textbooks, or does so only implicitly, because there is little incentive for anyone to rewrite it.>>
This is a contradiction. If work on Number Theory were "important" than surely my new book on Number Theory would include it. If editors are solely referring to old notebooks, than that's their own issue. That doesn't prevent the rest of us, from using only the newest textbooks if we so choose. The very definition of "important" is, that many people cite it. If no one cites it, it's not important.
Will Johnson
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On Tue, Jan 06, 2009 at 08:23:48PM -0500, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
The very definition of "important" is, that many people cite it. If no one cites it, it's not important.
Remember that I do not count a "name check" of a theorem as an actual source for the theorem (since it is not actually a source in any ordinary meaning of the word "source"). This may be leading to some misunderstanding.
Another issue is the cyclical nature of academic research. It's perfectly possible for a microfield to spring 25 peer reviewed papers in a decade and then pass out of fashion or have all the accessible results exhausted. Some of these microfields will get a book written about them, some will not. All are of encyclopedic interest.
- Carl
WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
It isn't necessary to go so far back. A large part of the important mathematics of the 1980s and 1990s does not appear in textbooks, or does so only implicitly, because there is little incentive for anyone to rewrite it.>>
This is a contradiction. If work on Number Theory were "important" than surely my new book on Number Theory would include it. If editors are solely referring to old notebooks, than that's their own issue. That doesn't prevent the rest of us, from using only the newest textbooks if we so choose. The very definition of "important" is, that many people cite it. If no one cites it, it's not important.
This is a bizarre definition of "important"; it might work for "influential" or "popular", but that is not what makes something important. Many new ideas are tangential to a general education about a subject, but are no less important to the advancement of knowledge. Textbooks are instruments for parroting the party line of received wisdom. They do little to address controversial issues.
Ec
On Jan 7, 2009, at 3:53 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
It isn't necessary to go so far back. A large part of the important mathematics of the 1980s and 1990s does not appear in textbooks, or does so only implicitly, because there is little incentive for anyone to rewrite it.>>
This is a contradiction. If work on Number Theory were "important" than surely my new book on Number Theory would include it. If editors are solely referring to old notebooks, than that's their own issue. That doesn't prevent the rest of us, from using only the newest textbooks if we so choose. The very definition of "important" is, that many people cite it. If no one cites it, it's not important.
This is a bizarre definition of "important"; it might work for "influential" or "popular", but that is not what makes something important. Many new ideas are tangential to a general education about a subject, but are no less important to the advancement of knowledge. Textbooks are instruments for parroting the party line of received wisdom. They do little to address controversial issues.
Well, and on top of that, publishing is a commercial enterprise. Even academic presses make decisions on what to publish in part based on what they think they can avoid completely losing their shirts on. So by relying too heavily on the question of what is published, we inject a really problematic commercial bias into what we do.
"Encyclopedia" and "record of only what has been published in reliable secondary sources" are not synonymous terms.
-Phil
Philip Sandifer wrote:
Well, and on top of that, publishing is a commercial enterprise. Even academic presses make decisions on what to publish in part based on what they think they can avoid completely losing their shirts on. So by relying too heavily on the question of what is published, we inject a really problematic commercial bias into what we do.
The irony is that many who would ignore the commercial realities of publishing can be the same ones who would man the barricades against advertising on Wikipedia, or argue for the purity of non-commercial licences.
Ec