2008-04-15 09:16MATH 880 PROSEMINAR JT SMITHOUTLINE 31 SPRING 20081. Assignmenta. Are there further questions about the social organization of mathematics?b. I selected a paper for discussion, also written for a senior-level course onhistory of mathematics. Follow the “Germaine term paper” link on thiscourse’s home webpage to see it. The paper received an A– grade. I copyeditedit and returned it to the student with the detailed comments, prefaced by thethis general remark:This is a marvelous paper. Should it not have been so, I would not have constructed thefollowing critique. I hope it helps you! I have complete confidence that you can do the thingsI suggested. (On the other hand I realize very much the time it takes to learn how to do allthis stuff, even after you get the basic inspiration.)For this paper I want to stress more that critique, to show you the level ofdetailed attention that an interested reader would want to give your work.Moreover, as you’ve seen already, many types of questions that arise hererecur in other contexts, even those of more immediate concern to you, thatseem remote indeed from the history related in this paper. Please read itthrough to prepare for its discussion.2. Bees term paper. Here is a possible copyediting critique of its title and first para-graph. Ms. Crump will lead a discussion of some of the following paragraphs.a. Title. No quotes, please.i. Rephrase to avoid the doubly-hyphenated word.ii. A more succinct title might be How the bees do it. But that might causesnickers, so better rephrase. (Actually the reference is to a 1940s ColePorter song, “Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. Let’s doit, let’s fall in love.”) b. It is interesting... Omit “It is interesting to note that”.c. With the help...i. an electron microscopeii. one can findiii. icosahedraliv. virusesv. a regular polyhedronvi. in a radiolariumvii. Insert a comma after radiolarium.d. One may also...i. Since viruses was plural so should be honeycombs. Thus hexagons shouldbe, too. The one can find and one may also find parallelism is distract-ing, so I’d write in place of this sentence, Bees’ honeycombs also displayhexagonal symmetry.e. The honeycomb of...i. Omit of the bees.Page 2 MATH 880 SPRING 2008 OUTLINE 312008-04-15 09:16ii. consistsiii. Omit bee-.iv. Insert a comma after cells.v. I wonder if the cells are similar enough to prisms to be called prismatic.vi. vesselsf. The openings of...i. Use bases not bottoms; the latter invites derision.ii. rhombig. The ancient Greek ...i. Close up the whitespace after the double quote.ii. Replace “, most excellent Megathon,” with an ellipsis. It’s not relevantand you wouldn’t want to be required to explain it.iii. amongh. Pappus goes oni. Pappus concludedii. honeycombs3. Ms. Crump led a brief discussion of several more paragraphs of this paper. Hereare some of those comments, and some from last year’s discussion.a. Sentence Accepting the hypothesis. The hypothesis has nothing to do withexaming the structure, so the initial clause can be omitted and the rest runon into the preceding paragraph. Examines not examine.b. Sentence L. Fejes Toth defined.i. Many European publications set in small capitals the first occurrencesof proper names. Some even set thus all occurrences. That does helpa reader find such references, but in excess it gets distracting. I gener-ally don’t do it.ii. Two-word names are hard to get right. It’s worth some deep checking,for example, to determine that this one should be alphabetized under Fnot T.iii. Convex not convix.iv. Insert a comma after interstices.v. I ns er t a before base.vi. Insert a comma after opening.vii. Have a face not have faces.viii. Insert semicolon before (2).c. Sentence The distance between.i. Planes not planeii. This sentence should be run on into the preceding paragraph.d. Sentence L. Fejes Toth formulated.i. Don’t repeat the L., nor the capitalization.ii. Definition not defination. Hyphen in wrong place.iii. Change period to colon after first and second honeycombs.iv. Among not amoung.MATH 880 SPRING 2008 OUTLINE 31 Page 32008-04-15 09:16v. Probably use V not v for volume. But after a full reading of this paper,I’d make a catalog of symbols then decide systematically which shouldbe changed and how.vi. Same for w.vii. Don’t hyphenate surface area either time.viii. Semicolon instead of period before (2).ix. Perhaps the two problems should be displayed as a list with bulletsinstead of numbers. I don’t think the author ever referred to thosenumbers.x. Omit the parentheses around of any width.e. Sentence In both cases.i. Insert space after bees’.ii. Delete a before base.iii. Proves not prove.f. Sentence In terms of: omit the initial phrase.g. Sentence The simplest regular.i. Equilateral not equalateral.ii. Don’t abbreviate Figure.iii. Change and then to “; next is”.iv. Change and the last to “; the least simple is the one”.v. Change “, and each has a side” to “and sides”. She wrote the oppositeof what she meant. h. Whitespace needs to be closed up several places before this. 4. Ms. Crump led a second discussion, of her outline-in-progress for her master’spaper. There is now a link to it on the course’s home page.a. Her supervisor (myself) remarked that she is now at or a bit beyond the limitof the scope of the content of such a paper. She’d been troubled by thatquestion.b. Moral. Don’t hesitate to ask your supervisor about the scope of your paper,as it progresses.c. Anecdote 1. My own PhD supervisor Gupta had that problem with his supervi-sor, Tarski, and told me that getting Tarski to say enough is enough was veryunpleasant. Gupta had to badger.d. Anecdote 2. With me, Gupta was careful to say when. In fact, he did so oneday in my office/lodging in Kiel, unexpectedly, quite before I was myself sureI had enough. After that, I did add one new theorem, but it was entirelyappropriate for me, after that point, to concentrate on the organization andpresentation of the work.e. Another moral. Ms. Crump is working on a subject that I last studied decadesago. She will become more familiar with some details than I am. Questionsabout mathematical facts will arise—they will with you, too. Do not assumethat you’re less knowledgeable than your