Once upon a time

1996/12/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Matematika

This is the title of the article on the last page of Euskaldunon Egunkaria on 14 September. In a passage that for many went unseen, the director of the circus, besides being a clown, said that he was a mathematician, and that these days he was giving the media an account of a discovery saying: “Historically there have been unresolved problems in mathematics: the square of the circle and the division of an angle into three parts. The German Wanzel showed that the latter was impossible, but I managed to divide it without more than using a compass and a rule.” Read for the second time and say yes. Of course you have to be in the circus! Where, if not, be impossible and get it done?

In the article of the Basque Newspaper Euskaldunon Egunkaria, a small passage was the central and unique theme in a newspaper in Spanish published in Euskal Herria; a television network, among the news of its day, showed that the mathematician of the circus could not carry out that work impossible before everyone(?). Those at least I know, but there could be more.

Since the time of the Greeks, three were the famous constructions that remained unresolved over the centuries, the two above mentioned and the doubling of the cube. A specific condition is required for construction: use only the unmarked ruler and compass. XIX. As demonstrated in the twentieth century, the search for the solution was useless, since the three were impossible: because with the rule and compass only certain numbers can be built (those with square roots, in short) and because those who demand these problems do not enter this field.

Impossible. Here is the word that must be understood well. Mr. Wanzel did not say that he could not and that a more skillful person would be needed for it, not so. Wanzel showed that "with premises that are considered true, with logical reasoning, reaching the authenticity of a proposition" was impossible to build; years later, as Lindemann did for the circle picture. And don't think they were secret tests. They are ordinary tests that are repeated every year in every corner of the world and before students. They have no slit. There is no doubt. You can not make these constructions, in the same way that adding the even numbers you can not get the odd numbers or… in the same way that you can not get the coffee with just water to the coffee maker.

The truth is that the director of that circus does not belong to such a rare species. Underwood Dudley is a mathematician who has gathered in a couple of books "People who believe they have achieved something impossible in mathematics". The second book, entitled "The Trisectors", deals with monographic subjects those who believe they have achieved a third of the angle. Here is another name for the next post.

In fact, the members of this species are not very harmful. The problem lies in reaching the media and, without any control, making barbarities accumulate over barbarities. In Euskaldunon Egunkaria, fortunately, no more space was offered to the mathematical part of the character, but if we take another excerpt from the paper above mentioned about the projects of the "herendedor": "Writing a book entitled Geometry of Space and research on Newton's theory of gravitation are the next challenges he faces after theorizing that the speed of light is the maximum admissible." Is it the highest speed of light? Have I not heard anything like this before? Maybe he doesn't? It seems that the TV broadcaster also had to pull his own: "Now we only have the square of the circle." There are so many programs that take advantage of people's participation in television, that they ask for "quadrators" and surely they will gather more than a dozen.

Of course, the journalist doesn't have to know that what he is told is a madness of that size, but is it so difficult to ask where it is needed? And seeing that in the themes around us they play so lightly, why believe that at other times it is becoming more serious?

Also, I don't think that the worst part of what the media do about science has touched us, the mathematicians, because mathematics barely appears (once they appear and how! ). In many pseudoscientific articles, programs and debates, and not a few, anyone who wants to respond with reason has a party, since people who make astral travel are much more interesting.

Science does not explain everything. There are many things out of what we know, but I think we deserve at least respect for what is well established.