I might be a noob compared to like @Vorpal @Rufus Shinra or even @Wakko
But I saw this Quora post and couldn't resist sharing, as it made me giggle IRL.
Rofl
But I saw this Quora post and couldn't resist sharing, as it made me giggle IRL.
A few years ago an email was sent to the whole math department at my university. The sender was an amateur mathematician who was furious that two papers he wrote were rejected by one famous Math Journal. Both papers were attached to the mail.
The first dealt with a fundamental problem in set theory, which urged him into a fundamental revision of set theory. The second paper applied the new mathematics to (a.o.) relativity theory. The fundamental mistake discovered in set theory was this.
"Suppose an element x is not in set X. Then x is zero times in X. However, x * 0 = 0, hence 0 must be in X. Hence the notion of membership needs revision."
I'm not joking, nor am I making this up. I never arrived at reading his second, major, paper.
Rofl