Content-Type: text/html

# AxelBoldt

HomePage | RecentChanges | Preferences
You can edit this page right now! It's a free, community project

I teach math at Metropolitan State University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. I'm also interested in molecular biology, computer science, (political) philosophy and chess. My home page is at http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/

I have taken an active interest in the following Wikipedia articles:

- How does one edit a page/Quick reference
- Searching on Wikipedia

- Complex number
- Polynomial
- The most remarkable formula in the world
- Eulers formula in complex analysis
- de Moivres formula
- Pi
- Euler-Maclaurin formula
- Taylors theorem
- Taylor series

- Continuum hypothesis
- Goedels Incompleteness Theorem
- Entscheidungsproblem
- First-order predicate calculus
- Presburger arithmetic
- Goedels completeness theorem
- Goedels ontological proof
- Liar paradox
- Epimenides paradox
- Banach Tarski Paradoxical Decomposition
- Ordinal number

- Analytical engine
- Complexity classes P and NP

- Four color theorem
- Prime number theorem
- Riemann hypothesis
- Riemann zeta function
- Monty Hall problem

- Quantum mechanics
- Uncertainty Principle
- Wave-Particle duality
- Color

Axel Boldt

Hi Axel. Sorry if you don't wat this here but I really wanted to compliment you on what you did on those pages above, especially on Goedel's Theorem. Very good work! -- JanHidders

Thanks for the kind words! I'm enjoying myself tremendously here and have learned a lot already :-) --Axel

Hello, I love your page. Yours is the first page I've read where I and the author are in complete agreement on almost everything. Remarkable. --Koyaanis Qatsi

  Hey KQ, do you mean my home page?? Because I have never met anybody who is in almost complete agreement with that. --Axel

Yes, I do. Specifically, I was referring to politics.html, though the rest is interesting too. I disagree about the prostitution argument, though, simply because people could also give food away for free out of love or charity, though I do agree that prostitution should be legal. And I must admit to having violated a few of your rules on webdesigning.... --KQ

Regarding recycling (your home page): among green types, recycling is recognized as the least desirable choice of the reduce/reuse/recycle trio. Reduce being to reduce what you use, reuse being to use something for the same purpose more than once (standard plates vs. paper plates, for example), and recycle being, as you put it, "downcycling." I collect aluminum for recycling in my office, but I don't buy or bring aluminum cans to the office myself. --Belltower

Dear Axel,

Upon checking upon KQ comment, curiosity led me to your page, and then to http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/politics.html You are a brainy guy! But your statement "[Medical research]? is a tremendous waste of time and money" is just plain stunning! I never thought I would ever hear anything like this -- hence "stunning". I also want people in Niger to overcome illiteracy?, overcome poverty?, and have access to the Internet. However, it would be wiser to speak about wrong allocation of resources or wrong priorities. Calling the work of thousands of good people and geniuses a waste of time and money is very unjust. The same research that serves a rich guy in Miami today can lead to a cure for malaria? tomorrow and save millions of lives (I hope you care).

For balance, I subscribe to your ideas of "kid simulating the universe", "marriage is outdated", "marrying into the developing world", and "let's have global government" (this is quite obvious to many and we will get there one day).

However, I found your views surprising, contradictory or plain erroneous in several places. To be sure, I would first need to know what are your basic beliefs because the call to "sit still and retire early" once again proves to me how astoundingly different people walk this planet. Of further disagreements: give passports to Kosovars (I agree but ... what about those who want to get back home, what about Slobodan and justice, what about the principle of not rewarding aggression?), no breeding (if brainy people stop breeding, all your calls to change will lay in ruin -- you know why!), few links in HTML (this is against wikipedia, against your own writings on wikipedia, and against the principle that it is less harm to make a hesitant guy hesitate than to deprive a resolute guy of a choice to be informed), war on advertising (let advertisers bleed their money down the drain, read Seth Godin!), bogus e-mail (not only you fool spammers but you mess up web traffic and search engines -- why pollute to resolve pollution), web overhyped (perhaps for guys who want to "sit still", my life goes through a new renascence thanks to this knowledge goldmine), comments on Peter Duesberg and his "science" (prompted me to write an entry on Duesberg -- follow the link), and last but not least ... lots of people/companies make pretty money on the net and this is only gonna grow!

I am sure you will want to know if except for "agree" or "disagree" I was inspired. Yes, this was all put in a way that tickles "creativity centers" (I won't list them due to your dislike of medical research). The best was the idea of swapping citizenship. I never thought of it. On the top of my head, it would not work (5 million of Sierra Leoneans waiting for 3 US vacancies), but I will leave it in my memory for further processing.

btw: Why do you want no development ("sit still, retire early")? If you sit still in stagnation, how will you contact the kid that runs this universe in a computer simulation? How old are you? If you are below 27.3, your future is bright :) -- Piotr Wozniak

Piotr, I'm glad if I stimulated you; some of the "radical" statements on that page are actually intended to do just that. For instance, the "medical research is a waste of time and money" statement is intended to shock you into realizing how appallingly partial we are when it comes to applying the fruits of that research. And the "sit and retire" recommendation is supposed to point to the fact that much of our so-called activity is actually detrimental.

I also should say that this page has been created over 6 years and that I myself don't agree with all of it anymore :-)

Cheers,

      --AxelBoldt

Aha! Still the "shock method" on medical research may backfire as one could be tempted to think "crackpot page" and click on close button in the browser. I was lucky to dig deeper :) - Is your age a secret? (btw: I am 40) There must be some page on the net which is the focus of those wanting a global government! We gotta find it and put a hand (or thumb) -- Piotr Wozniak

  I'm 35 and planning my retirement. --Axel

  Just think how many Wikipedia articles you could write once retired! :-) --Belltower
    Believe it or not, that was exactly what I was thinking when I wrote the above sentence. --Axel

Actually, the problem with advertising isn't that they're wasting money, but that it actually does work! We aren't quite the rational creatures we would like to believe, so advertisers can convince us we need a V-8 engine, to spend thousands on a diamond that 99% of us couldn't tell from cubic zirconium, and (worse) they convince our kids that they absolutely must have various and sundry kitschy items. By bombarding us with images of beautiful people and scenes, it alters our perceptions of the world around us. If advertising were just a way to inform us about new and potentially useful products, that would be one thing. But it's another, far more harmful thing. -- Belltower

HomePage | RecentChanges | Preferences
You can edit this page right now! It's a free, community project
Edit text of this page | View other revisions
Last edited August 16, 2001 2:52 pm (diff)
Search: