From: wgd@berne.ai.mit.edu (Bill Dubuque) Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.math.symbolic Subject: Max Zima: greatest mathematizian of all time [was: Is it ture?] Date: 11 Sep 1996 10:01:25 -0400 Ilias Kastanas wrote: :Martijn Dekker wrote: :>"N.R.Bruin" wrote: :>:Pertti Lounesto wrote: :>:> Newton, Gauss, Hamilton, Galois and Ahlfors are great mathematicians. :>:> I have heard that the greatest mathematician of all times is a Russian :>:> mathematician called Maplev, who is still living. Is this true, and :>:> what are the contributions of Maplev? :>: :>:I thought experts couldn't agree whether Maplev or M.A. Them a Tica from :>:Illinois has greatest influence. Isn't Maplev living in Canada nowadays ? :> :>Well, maplev is of canadian origin, not sure whether her still lives :>there, anyway, he must travel a lot because I see him everywhere! : :Has he ever gone to Scotland, to meet MacSymah ? Clearly you mean Max Zima, the Siberian constructivist, whose program is known especially for its clear algorithmic content. Walter Lou Maplev and M. A. The. Matica are disciples of Zima, although Zima would himself approve of neither of their efforts, neither of which imbibe fully Zima's principle of constructive bar-induction -- a fundamental tenet of intuitionistic spirit. The true spirit of Zima's program is presented quite clearly at http://www.zima.com/ Zima is especially critical of Matica's program -- founded as it is upon specious products of intuitionistically questionable bracketed functional abstractions -- which lead quite quickly to disarray. Further, Matica has been subject to harsh criticism from the math community for failure to reveal clear proofs of his basic algorithms, e.g. for his Rich Algorithm [3] -- an integral part of his program. One of Zima's students has mocked these questionable incentives by writing under the pseudonym Rich Fate Man: http://http.cs.berkeley.edu/~fateman/ In particular, Rich Fate Man has pioneered the implementation of a successful Mock Matica program: http://http.cs.berkeley.edu/~fateman/mma.mailer Mock Matica is founded upon a manifesto consisting of a scathing critique of the entire Matica program, see [2] or ftp://peoplesparc.berkeley.edu/pub/papers/mma.review.ps.Z In Russia Max Zima's son, Ed Vax Zima, has been instrumental in a spirited evolution of the original Zima program, see [1]. -Zilly (a Zima ztudent) [1] Abramov, S. A.; Zima, E. V.; Rostovtsev, V. A. Computer algebra. (Russian) Programmirovanie 1992, no. 5, 4--25. MR 94g:68053 68Q40 [2] Fateman, Richard J. A review of Mathematica. J. Symbolic Comput. 13 (1992), no. 5, 545--579. MR 93f:68049 (Reviewer: D. Z. Spicer) 68Q40 (68-04 68N99) [3] Risch, Rob. The solution of the problem of integration in finite terms. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 76 1970, 605--608. MR 42 #4530 (Reviewer: K. Okugawa) 12.80 (14.00)