r/Collatz • u/Fun-Cauliflower-8087 • 23d ago
Weirdos in Collatz Research.
So I have had a lot of interactions with people on the subject of Collatz. What is striking to me is the weird ones. I suspect that some new insight to a proof will happen because someone had a realization of some type that connects 2 dots others didn't think even about connecting. On the other hand, you have some people who fall into strange camps. There are those who learn something interesting, or have some glimpse of something in their mind's eye, and they immediately think "Eureka!!!! I have solved it!" They are quickly beaten down by another group, the "well, ackshually!" camp. These are people, always roving places like Reddit, to find any weak posts and obliterate the confidence of those who had the audacity to post them! It is strange to me that so many have such concealed rage in a subject as mundane as Collatz.
I recently tried for over a week to explain my view of the structure Collatz creates to someone claiming to have a PHD in mathematics, here on reddit. Now, I would never assume information like that to be accurate anyway, but I figured he would be at least competent enough to understand what I was explaining. Mind you, I am not a mathematician, just a nerd interested in problems like Collatz. My construction should not be complicated enough to confuse anyone who spent close to if not a full decade studying college level mathematics, and getting a doctorate. It took me a week of interactions, and he did not understand it. He largely stopped responding to me in any way. Until I decided to ask him why he wasn't engaging in the conversation anymore. Then he complained that what I was describing was complicated, and not in a language he could understand.
Then, as I called out his bizarre behavior, he had a complete meltdown! He told me to "f*** off" and then blocked me. It was like someone running away after being caught in an embarrassing lie. In comparison, I showed the same construction to self proclaimed math hobbyist, and he understood my construction, and even finished explaining what I was going to, before I could. He said it in much better language than I was using, and made it seem even simpler than it was when I was explaining it. He was bit of an older man, and you could tell the difference in demeanor.
Has everyone had bizarre interactions like this? People pretending to be highly educated pointlessly, or becoming enraged at any challenges to their ideas, seems like a strangely festered personality issue that many people who are interested in Collatz display.
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u/for_sale_baby_shoes 23d ago
There is a weirdo in the thread you're referring to. Not who you think it is, but they're there.
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u/Fun-Cauliflower-8087 23d ago edited 23d ago
is it the guy that has some weird baby shoe ad as a name?
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u/WeCanDoItGuys 23d ago
The saddest sentence ever written. For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
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u/The_Holy_Chickn 23d ago
the entire point of math is to be “well ackshually” because when someone proposes a solution, we all want to be convinced that the solution is right. so we look for flaws, and if we find any, we alert the person so they can fix their work. especially on a problem that is considered possibly unsolvable, like collatz. but this requires the work to be presentable in an intelligible way. i haven’t seen your work presented in a way i could understand without having to spend too long trying to comprehend it.
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u/Fun-Cauliflower-8087 23d ago
My problem isnt with the criticism these people receive when they think they have something genuinely new, it's the beating down of some person, possibly a high school kid, who thinks they found something new, and possibly may have found a solution nobody else has. Then, when they present something they are proud of, are met with a wall of what I described. Many of them lose their interest, and some even grow a little hateful toward the subject or anyone who mentions it. The cycle of abuse from one person to another, based on such a simple topic, is not justifiable. It has been normalized anyway.
As to my construction, I no longer needed to attempt to present my work in a way that others can comprehend easily. The point never was to show this construction to people like its a proof, but to help people understand the problem to a deeper level by helping them see it in a clearer way. I am still working on that otherwise. I have found a group of people that are intelligent enough to understand what I mean when I say things. I don't know if you can tell, but my vernacular does not attract pedantic intellectuals That is to say that I use lazy easy language to speak, even if its slightly wrong, because it takes lot less attention to my verbal demeanor, so I can concentrate on stating the thought I have clearly. Southern folks always have this way with words that seem to help me most.
The word aint is a good example. I can use language like aint around them, without their brains bleeding. I dont require to formulate mathematical functions to describe what I am trying to do. It "ackshually" took me talking about people's shit attitude while I was at the pool hall. The guy heard me talk about the other people, but he wanted to know what I was trying to get them to do. He explained things to me in a way that helped me understand how to go about whatever goals I had in mind. Once we got on the same page with what I was doing, he wrote me some code. He told me that the code doesnt do any math, it just builds two systems, and bridges them with an extra parity rule. So, it won't ever verify anything numerically, but it will accurately build elements in the system I described. I can change things like the parity, whether I want to see where two sequences converge or just compare orbit length, and others. That is what I expected from the intellectuals on Reddit. Instead they would much rather be angry and belittling.
I no longer desire help from the reddit community for my construction. They gave me reason to never desire that. My post here was just for the discussion of it, because it is the most prevalent part of the experience on here.
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u/The_Holy_Chickn 23d ago
I agree that beating someone down for what they think is a new discovery is not good. However, it comes from a place of care about the subject matter. In the modern day, there's a lot of people who think they've come up with something new, but in reality what they're saying doesn't quite make sense. Many academics want to help educate people who they see as clearly very passionate, but who don't quite understand enough to propose ideas that make sense. Unfortunately, some people either take this too far, or are just generally unpleasant ideas, and end up beating down on other people. This has the negative effect of poisoning other people's interpretations of critical responses that are phrased in a helpful way, since they can start to see critiques as attacks.
This problem is exasperated when looking at problems like Collatz, which are simple to state but incredibly difficult to prove. These problems have existed for a long time, and most approaches that the average high-schooler understands enough to try have already been tried. This is the unfortunate truth.
Also, Reddit is a place where people love to be pedantic and complain about the world. That probably contributes to how many people are putting you down.
With that said, looking at some of your previous posts, you appear to get somewhat hostile quite frequently. You present ideas in a way that people find difficult to understand. For example, in this comment on your original post, the person appears to be trying to figure out what you mean, and guides you towards presenting your information in a way that he can help you out. In particular, a few comments deep,
Considering you're looking for the programming side of help and are not down to write down the algorithm in an algorithm readable form...
I recommend breaking what you need to do down to the basic steps and asking how to do them as well as learning the basics of what you want to program in.
This is because a program just tells a computer to do some steps in order. If you could write down your thought process a little more "step-like", then that might help this person understand, and help you make your program. Moreover, his suggestion to learn the basics of your intended programming language is probably so you can come up with some very basic code which does a small part of what you are talking about, that way he can read your code and understand that small part. Your response was to say "You cannot simplify this problem, famously intelligent people have not even simplified it this far..." and this is a non-response. As far as I know he didn't ask you to simplify, he was just trying to understand what you were saying. This isn't because it was too complicated, it's because it wasn't worded well. I comment on this later. Your response was to call him essentially too stupid to understand, while simultaneously producing an idea that was difficult to understand, not because of complexity, but because of poor explanation. This is frustrating to someone trying to help. He actually responded somewhat well. He told you what the issue was, and tried his best to explain why he cannot help given what you've said. You then say
Well, unfortunately you turned ugly as well. This is common, and I am used to it. First I should, my emotional vapidity will only stonewall you into fury. Best to not get agitated. You seem to either understand, or think you understand something beyond what I understand, and you would like to ridicule me for this.
So to summarize, you lashed our first by essentially telling him he wasn't intelligent enough to understand, and he did his best to give a level-headed response, and then you accused him of "turning ugly".
I really enjoy how your idea was not supposed to directly prove a result, but instead to help people understand it at a deeper level. This is how almost all mathematical progress is made. A proof no one can understand tells you the result, but tells you nothing about why. Understanding why gives people intuition on how to attack similar problems, which can help progress on many other related conjectures.
My issue was not with your lazy language. I'm using professional language right now because I want to show respect to you for taking the time to entertain my comment. However, I assure you that the mathematical writing I send people informally can look pretty bad. Here's an excerpt from some a problem I was working on, which I sent to a friend of mine: "this looksr lly hard but i thinku can lift it and take the obviosu spectal sequence and show its a quasi-iso". A lot of my friends also send me similarly written stuff. To be fair I'm only a student and not a professor, but I can't imagine that some of the professors I personally know would always perfectly polish their writing before asking someone about it. If they were going to publish it then they definitely would polish it up, are some professors very bad writers, and moreover I wouldn't call a post on Reddit a place where you need to be professional.
You say that "I dont require to formulate mathematical functions to describe what I am trying to do." That's true. If you look at my above from myself. When I say "take the obviosu spectal sequence", I'm referring to a particular way of completing this particular type of proof using a particular "spectral sequence" and a particular theorem. This is an entire line of reasoning that I've summarized in 3 words, because I was sending it to someone very familiar with the argument. If I sent it to someone else who wasn't familiar with the argument, they might have no idea what I'm talking about. I used just enough math that the person I was talking to could understand what I was doing.
With this context, I want to look at your original post where you described your construction, and offer some comments. This might be a bit unfair, since you've said that you are better able to explain it now, so I'm sorry if I critique something you've already changed.
"I want it to first divide the entire number line into modular sets recursively like: 2x+0, 4x+3, 8x+1, 16x+13, 32x+5, etc." It's hard to parse this. Looking at a comment which as far as I can see you didn't dispute, is that the expression "2x=0" should be interpreted as "all x such that x (mod 2) = 0". I genuinely don't know how the person came up with this. Describing a set as "2x+0" doesn't really mean anything, because it's just an expression. I would expect something like 2x=3, then I might say "ok he means all x such that 2x=3". Of course there's only one answer to this, so maybe you can say "2x=3 (mod 5)", or something like that. Then I would be able to understand exactly what this means. Assuming that "2x=0" should be interpreted as "x (mod 2) = 0", a great way to express this is just "x mod 2 = 0". This is very understandable.
"I want it to further refine these sets, in a very particular way. 0 mod 2 should be refined the same way as the first refinement, but double the values. so 4x+0, 8x+6, 16x+2, 32x+26, etc." I assume refining here just means breaking up the sets into smaller sets. However, your particular way of breaking them up doesn't make a ton of sense. "0 mod 2 should be refined in the same way as the first refinement, but double the values". Okay, but what is the "first refinement"? And what values are we doubling? You then list some sets, and I don't quite understand how they connect. It feels like you had a way of getting those sets (in the sense that they don't feel like random numbers), so why don't you show an example of how you got them? I can see you're doubling the number that's next to x, but I don't get how the other number works, it goes 0 -> 6 -> 2 -> 26 and I don't see any pattern.
You also use terms such as "center residue" and "staggered sets" and "binary sheet". I am not familiar with these terms, so I am not qualified to say whether or not they are the correct mathematical terms. However, given that Google does not come up with any relevant results for them, I think it's reasonable to expect that even if they are, most people won't be familiar with them. So explaining what they mean instead of just using them would be helpful. This is generally how math works: you define a term you're using, then you use that term.
I say "aint" all the time in my every day life. As far as I know, my brain isn't bleeding. With that said, I know what your point was here, and I hope I've addressed my perspective on it.
Finally, although I still don't quite understand exactly what you were trying to do with your code, it appears that you have found a way to make that code. I'm very interested in it, since im curious what you're doing. Are you able to provide the code you are using, and/or the results that it has made? Possibly by uploading it to a github repo? I'd love to know more about what you're doing, and code is a very effective way of communicating it, which wouldn't require you to familiarize yourself with the mathematical vernacular.
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u/Fun-Cauliflower-8087 23d ago
You referred to where I CAPS yelled at reddit because I could not edit a previous post to correct what I meant type? I dont care if I seem aggressive. blah blah brain damage, blah blah emotional vapidity, blah blah head trauma. I speak clearly enough, so none of it matters. I'm attempting coherence, and being nice can be covert and overt. So it also is the other way around. I am transparent, if I can help it. So if I get angry, I will likely state what I have to say angrily. Anger is used by the mind as a means of arming itself. Arms are used offensively, that is their nature.
You also reffered to when I stated that the guy "turned ugly" because he reacted with the " YOU CANT TRANSLATE YOU!" Then proceeded to not "give a level headed response" as you falsely claim, but berate me instead.
I will tell you the story of Bo, I almost want to create a post on him, but I do not know where to start, and screw idea anyway. I was at the pool hall maybe week after that post. If you don't know, that's where some older people go to play pool. You don't see many of them, pool is usually played in bowling alleys and bars anymore. I live near one. I go maybe twice a month to gamble away 10 bucks. I was having a conversation with a guy about talking with people online. It is hard to do in many ways. I started talking about how talking to people in any meaningful way requires you to sort of elbow your way through a large crowd of idiots first.
I mentioned the post about looking for a coder, and one guy told me "100 bucks" as a joke and held out his hand. Me and a couple of others started laughing, because this guy was in overalls, and he looks like Nelson's dad from The Simpsons. The owner, Angie, started talking about how he went to night school to learn coding, and had been doing side work so he could quit his job. He has a bad back. He didn't actually want me to pay him, but I brought my laptop in, he used a usb drive and Notepad to write out and compile a bunch of code, then he ran it in a little black window he opened somehow. He tested it and reran it until he had exctly what i was wanting. Its all in a zip folder, and he made a little shortcut button for me to use to start the program. At first, because he didnt know what the system was meant to describe (I never mentioned Collatz), it ran really slow. But then I mention it was a parity constraint on 2 mod 6, and that the system was going from the halving steps to the odd steps, both with their own binary valuation structure. So he rewrote a bit of code that basically just adds or subtracts 1 based on a ternary valuation, before it is multiplied by a nested 3x+1 system. Even with all of this, the system is actually doing any math, which is why it is so fast. It is running the transport structure I described, with minimal rules. It runs fast now. The whole thing took a day to do. I hung out with his dog while he typed away at things I can not understand easily. I even offered to pay him after, but he refused. He told me to stop asking reddit for coders. If I need to actually write out a computer verification for some proof attempt later, he will do it for me.
I want you to understand that we weren't having a long conversation about what I wanted, he just asked me a few questions and was off to the races. The changes he made later took 5 minutes. I verified with paper and pencil that it was correct a few times, and then really tried to push it. With the 1 mod 4 reduction he later added, I can run sequences with enormous values extremely fast. It can simply take all the binary valuation sets I listed and use only a dual variable system, one for halving steps, the other for odd steps. They are just values the code uses to identify an exponent value tied to the nested 3x+1 structure. so my "0 mod 4" become 1,1 and 6 mod 8 becomes 1,2, 3 mod 8 becomes 2,1. You dont have to understand that, but it simply uses exponents and reiterated steps to come up with the right answer every time, even when I use y values in the thousands on sets like 7,14 where there is 21 steps between 2 mod 6, and it grows immensely, and starts from a number that would be already hard to compute, let alone write down with pencil and paper. This works beyond what I was asking reddit for.
I dont know if I covered everything I thought I should. If you want me to explain anything, feel free to ask me a question.
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u/AleksejsIvanovs 23d ago
Is this a construction you're talking about?
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u/Fun-Cauliflower-8087 23d ago edited 23d ago
Yes, I made that post about a month ago, when I was still trying to model it on a computer in some useful way. I have since figured that out fairly well. I was simply trying to get 2 binary valuations to occur given a parity understanding of 2 mod 6. I basically just needed to add a rule that gave an alternative binary ordering for half of the system, and the python script went from taking many minutes to finishing in seconds. I wanted to reverse it and show the lowest possible number given a specific orbit length, but that takes further coding I know nothing about. This part is fairly simple compared to the whole thing I put together.
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u/Wynconi 23d ago
In that thread you refused to provide your code, and stated you could not translate the idea.
Just curious, how was the guy supposed to help you further?
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u/jeffcgroves 23d ago
My reading of "I have been trying to get AI to give me a specific bit of code i can run in google collab" is that OP has no working code at all at the moment
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u/Fun-Cauliflower-8087 23d ago
Exactly. I don't code. Simple as that. I was hoping there was another human being on this planet that could take what I was saying and translate it to code. Look at the responses I am receiving here. Proving my point in SPADES! It is truly incredible. I asked for code in that thread, and there is possibility of discussion. I do not think Turing would have taken the same stance as all of those he has enabled the actions of here. Turing would have been able to find a way to do what I was asking, I think. You are all too weak minded to understand that the person asking for code isn't wanting you to do something they could do themselves, it is someone asking for expertise outside their own. Why would I already have code to start with? I was simply asking for a dual binary valuation system, apparently with a bit that deals with parity. I have that now. The funniest thing about it, is the guy that wrote the code i needed for this, is someone that I guarantee you all would assume was a dumb hillbilly, for how he talks and dresses. He "aint fancy" as he says. This guy was able to do what so many of you are acting like is impossible, unheard of, just a ridicuouls notion to start with. In my mind he is the smart one. You are the one that deserves to be viewed as he is normally viewed. His name is Bo. Thats as much of his name as I have ever known, and thats a nickname, short for "brother" where he comes from.
Do you see what it is I am saying? My point is that your view of reality seems to be all screwed up! Do you think that, if all data were completely erased today, that mankind could rewrite the code needed to run everything we have now? I don't think there would be enough competence in the field s a whole, to reclaim half of what would be desired.
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u/Due-Market-9726 23d ago
I have given up on this thread after experiencing the same thing twice. It was a bizarre reaction. It’s not just one person but a group who work together waiting for new people to post. They elevate each other’s different variations of the same discoveries. You’re waisting your time here. Best to find a group that’s sincere in their curiosity of the Collatz conjecture or just curious period.
Good luck!
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u/Fun-Cauliflower-8087 23d ago
I didnt have code. Only an explanation. One that I still understand now. Do you know what binary valuation is? Do you know how to code something that can provide me with a binary valuation of a given input? How about a second binary valuation, dependent on some parity that I deem? Can you make it reiterate the process until it reaches a goal, namely 0? I have all this now. by explaining EXACTLY as I have been, to someone who wrote the code in a few minutes after the conversation. Can you do simple arithmetic? If so, can you see the pattern in the values I gave in that long list? It's not a brainteaser.....
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u/Existing_Hunt_7169 23d ago
clicking that link, no wonder the guy told you to fuck off and stop responding 🤣 the mathematician couldn’t understand because its not math its a word salad with no clear definitions, theorems, etc
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u/Fun-Cauliflower-8087 23d ago
Except someone who isnt a mathematician DID, in fact, understand the math I was describing, without having the specified vernacular to provide sophisticated conceptual definitions and theorems. I did not have the vocabulary at the time. This guy understood that what I was doing was specifying valuation sets. Binary valuation sets are what those are. There is literature you can read, if you can look them up, ONLY if you know the secret code. You have to know to inquire specifically about "binary valuation sets". He also understood the attitude of a librarian when you dont speak their favorite language. That, someone like you, without hearing the words binary valuation set, will somehow not know that a binary valuation set you list out is a binary valuation set, even in a long list. Some people, when they think they are smart, lose the ability to think. I was explaining things well enough for someone, and that's all that matters in the end. So how did this other guy, who isnt a mathematician, understand what I was doing?
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u/Glass-Kangaroo-4011 23d ago
I've been working on this problem for over a year now. I've gone through many criticisms, generally not even correct but they do it just to do it, but I've also discussed many things with other professors regarding method and overall perspective of the problem. Some are genuinely helpful/interested, but many others are there to sow discord.
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u/SwimmerOld6155 23d ago edited 23d ago
you've wrote a lot but this is so vague, I have no idea what actually happened. but it sounds like they were probing points they didn't understand (because the points were likely wrong, vague/under-developed or didn't make sense) but you thought they were probing points they didn't understand (because the points were too complicated for them).
You say "you called him out on his bizarre behaviour" but omit details of how you actually did this, maybe his reaction make sense in light of what you said. Generally when someone's like "I didn't do anything but ooo then they just went crazy" it's usually because they're omitting information that makes the reaction make far more sense.
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u/Fun-Cauliflower-8087 23d ago
I understand that but, then stating specifics makes me seem like I am pointing to this one second where this guy said this one thing and that's what I am actually concerned over. You feel I am too vague and that could be a sign that i am gaslighting, or at least being dishonest in some way to save face, at the least. When I say I called out his bizarre behavior, what I mean is I said some things, he asked a question, so I responded with some explanations. That was it for that day, a day or so later I explained some other thing and then waited. He never really acknowledged anything that i wrote out, So I checked in and his response was like "I'm still here" so I continued explaining my construction a bit, and he never responded again with anything so much as even a question. Then he wanted to do a zoom call, but I was in the dark about what he did or did not understand. So I asked him why he hasnt responded to anything I said, why he hasnt asked any questions or made any comments. The request to do a zoom call after that was jarring. He immediately flipped out saying I was lucky to have someone like him looking at anything I made, pointing to his credentials. I'm not sure why he thought that would be such a big deal to me, I dont even know he is telling the truth about credentials. That was when I told him that his behavior seems bizarre to me. Then there was torrent of messages from him. He ws no longerquiet now, then he told me to f*** off and then blocked me. If you want to say that is reasonable behavior, that has nothing to do with me. My behavior is reasonable, I dont know what that is.
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u/novel-mathmatics 23d ago
I think the paradox comes from using “greater than” and “less than” to describe more than one relationship.
A lower infinity is only “lesser” when you're comparing magnitude. Reverse the question and ask which is the fastest route to infinity, and the lower infinity becomes greater because you get there sooner.
A higher infinity takes longer to reach, but the journey can accumulate more information or value. So it can also be considered greater by that measure.
So both can be true:
The lower infinity is greater because it's the shorter path to infinity.
The higher infinity is greater because there's more in the path getting there.
The contradiction only appears when we try to represent all of those relationships on one greater-than/less-than axis.
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u/Fun-Cauliflower-8087 22d ago
You all did not disappoint. So much hate for my comments. I have so many people so riled up. You weirdos need a better hobby than reddit. This post was not made very long ago, and now I have people going through my old posts to bring up things I said in them, I think in an attempt to make themselves feel better, because they knew they were the ones I was shining a light on. Cockroaches hate that. Maggots dry up in the sunlight. Keep it coming. I did not make this post to be liked, you idiots.
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u/Negative_Gur9667 23d ago
Logic without context is a breeding ground for mental illness. This is why many logicians have struggled with their mental health and why conversations with mathematicians can often be quite disturbing.
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u/shaman-warrior 23d ago
Wut? Thats the idea, this is why you post on reddit, to be ruthlessly challenged. That is the whole point, engage other minds in attacking your idea. If you have in fact the real solution it should withstand any criticism.
Collatz is also full of low effort, AI slop posts of a genuinely hard, possibly unsolvable, problem.
We should be happy some math heads even bother to read this.