Media should adopt scientific thinking
ON WEDNESDAY, a report about a self-claimed mathematician "finding the fatal errors of calculus" and "reestablishing a new theory to replace it" created a buzz online. China Daily writer Zhang Zhouxiang comments:
This is not the first time that calculus, a key part of advanced mathematics, has been "overthrown". Actually, ever since calculus as a mathematical method and theory was introduced by Newton and Leibniz in the 1600s, there have been at least 1,000 self-appointed mathematicians who have claimed they have "overthrown" it, although about 90 percent of them do not even know what calculus is.
This time, the "mathematician" is much better than his predecessors. According to Lei Ting, founder of mathematical popular science website duodaa.com, the reported "mathematician" could at least list a few differential calculus theorems in his essay, which shows he has certain knowledge about math. However, he mixed the basic concepts of calculus, and his essay is more like a publicity product, not a serious academic work.
