A recent article in ScienceDaily summarized the work of a pair of Associate Professors from Montclair State University who discovered a linear replacement for the pythagorian method.
The original press release, from the American Institute of Physics, was kindly dug out for me by Ben Stein of that organization.
The central figures are Dr. Michael Jones, a mathematician specializing in game theory, and Dr. Linda Tappin a statistician with an interest in "statistics and sports".
I wanted to get upset....
I thought I could be righteously indignant about misquoting when James published the method, but discovered checking my sources that he didn't publish it as early as I had thought. My library suggests (but cannot confirm) that the publication was in 1980; Sean Lahman verifies this.
I thought I could be righteously indignant about using the phrase "Pythagorean Theorem" where James was careful to use "Pythagorean Method". But in searching the web I discover that Clay Davenport make the same mistake.
Really, all you can fault them for is "publishing" without first checking for relevant literature. Did they really think that no one had examined this in the past 24 years?
A humbler attitude, "Hey, we got it right! Not bad for amateurs", would have served better, I think.
April 21, 2004 9:32 PM
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Have you posted your contact information anywhere on your website?
I am interested in how you obtained the book- Advanced Calculus, by Frederick Shenstone Woods.
yukon dot netfirms dot com/feedback.htm (somehow movable type insn't allowing me to type the url)
Comment by: albrect April 22,2004