Thanks for the insightful review. his is Hollywood pablum, and shouldn’t be given a fucking Oscar nomination. Oops, what did I say, it desreves it because it is!

I think you haven’t read clearly about what I’m saying about the urban legend based on Dantzig. I know full well the factual basis of the legend, and follow up with a piece of math folklore featuring Dantzig and von Neumann (which I had heard a degree of separation away from Dantzig’s retelling of his story). What I’m pointing out are reasons why the urban legend — which differs from the actual story in important ways and makes factual errors — propagates and gets retold, as, in this example, a Hollywood movie.

I never say Dantzig didn’t do what he did. I’m saying that the UL, which is about “impossible” things being accomplished by bright neophytes who have yet to be jaded by the world, isn’t the real story, and the variations from the real story (which you kindly gave a link to) are interesting in themselves.

So you went to grad school for math, did you, and you can’t even spell the name of the famous mathematician whose reputation you are slamming on?

It is not “Danzig,” it is “Dantzig.” The legend that you so arrogantly rip on as false, isn’t.

From DanTzig’s own words: “During my first year at Berkeley I arrived late one day to one of Neyman’s classes. On the blackboard were two problems which I assumed had been assigned for homework. I copied them down. A few days later I apologized to Neyman for taking so long to do the homework – the problems seemed to be a little harder to do than usual. I asked him if he still wanted the work. He told me to throw it on his desk. I did so reluctantly because his desk was covered with such a heap of papers that I feared my homework would be lost there forever.

About six weeks later, one Sunday morning about eight o’clock, Anne and I were awakened by someone banging on our front door. It was Neyman. He rushed in with papers in hand, all excited: “I’ve just written an introduction to one of your papers. Read it so I can send it out right away for publication.” For a minute I had no idea what he was talking about. To make a long story short, the problems on the blackboard which I had solved thinking they were homework were in fact two famous unsolved problems in statistics. That was the first inkling I had that there was anything special about them.”

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Dantzig_George.html

Regards,

John