Talk:Shinichi Mochizuki

Edit protect article?

After Ted Nelson's Guess. Does this need to be locked to protect against vandalism?

Maybe Shinichi doesn't want to be 'outed' (if it's even he).

Derek derekscherer dot com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.237.94.142 (talk) 22:49, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Computer technologist Ted Nelson has publicly speculated that Shinichi is the actual figure behind the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emDJTGTrEm0 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.15.171.107 (talk) 08:23, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Verification of the ABC proof

The page currently states that the ABC proof has been verified by 10 mathematicians. I had not read the paper it cites (and am not a mathematician myself), but everything I have read suggests that the status of the proof is still in question. I did not remove the other citation, but I think it should be given adequate context. JustinBlank (talk) 01:20, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Actually, the text says that the "theory" has been verified; whether any of "its applications" have been verified isn't clear from the text. This could be formulated better by somebody who knows about these things... 203.19.71.70 (talk) 07:10, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

The article claims without any reservation that ABC conjecture is proved by Mochizuki. Even in brief summary it is written that he is "the author of a proof of abc conjecture", not "the author of a PURPORTED proof of abc conjecture". However, neither the proof nor the theory it is based on is verified and accepted by mathematical community. A small group of mathematicians who claim it is verified consist of several students of Mochizuki (all from Japan) and Ivan Fesenko (Nottingam). See the discussion in the blog of Frank Calegary (University of Chicago) with contributions of such leading experts as Brian Conrad, Peter Scholze, Akshay Venkatesh, Harald Helfgott and others (Terence Tao included): https://galoisrepresentations.wordpress.com/2017/12/17/the-abc-conjecture-has-still-not-been-proved/ The article is written in an advertisement style which is completely unapropriate for an academic article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.70.58.246 (talk) 21:26, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Dangerous Claims

At the bottom of the intro: "Applications of IUT lead to solutions of several celebrated problems in number theory such as the strong Szpiro conjecture, the Vojta conjecture for hyperbolic curves, a version of the abc conjecture and its generalization over arbitrary number fields."

It still hasn't been officially verified Mochizuki's methods solve any of these conjectures. While I acknowledge his methods are used to purportedly solve all these conjectures, the phrasing should be "unverified solutions."

I encourage one to read the following post by Brian Conrad, a leading expert in expert in arithmetic geometry: https://mathbabe.org/2015/12/15/notes-on-the-oxford-iut-workshop-by-brian-conrad/

The article is written in advertisement style completely inappropriate for an academic article. There are many claims that violate encyclopedic style. E.g.:

  "He is the leader of and one of the main contributors to the branch of modern number theory ..."
  "His contributions include his famous solution ..."

Though there is no doubt that Mochizuki is an outsatnding mathematician with serious achievements this is not an appropriate way to describe his work; such expressions are not usually used in Wikipedia when describing the work of much more famous mathematicians.

  "Due to its groundbreaking nature and applications, and the fact that experts in other areas of number theory found it difficult to study the theory, this theory has attracted the highest level of attention ..."
  "The IUT theory can even be viewed as a paradigm shift in number theory, which is a very rare event in mathematics"

These (and many other) citations lead to to the impresssion that Mochizuki's theory is verified and accepted by mathematical community. This is by mo means the case, see, for example, the discussion in the blog of mathematician Frank Calegary where some best experts in the field express there strong reservation about the current status of Mochizuki's work: https://galoisrepresentations.wordpress.com/2017/12/17/the-abc-conjecture-has-still-not-been-proved/

   "The number of experts in IUT grew to a two-digit number by 2016, and is estimated to be around 20 by the end of 2017. It is an interesting feature of the study of IUT that younger researchers, as well as some more senior researchers are seemingly doing better in its study than mathematicians in the prime of their mathematical age.[27]"

This is a very strange statement which definitely has nothing to do with mathematics and should not be represented in Wikipedia. As well as the previous sentences it belongs to Ivan Fesenko (Nottingam University) who, as far as I know, is the only non-Japanese mathematician who claims that Mochizuki's theory is verified and correct. The last assertion (about age of mathematicians) is published in more than controversial facebook post https://www.facebook.com/ivan.fesenko.37/posts/1128469910617882 where Fesenko personally attacks one of his colleagues. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anton.d.baranov (talk • contribs) 21:46, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

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I've already tried _twice_ to include the fact that the proofs of the conjectures have not been accepted by the math community, but twice my changes have been "reverted" in other edits, without warning, by supposedly different people who write no summary and whose only edits are very recent and belong all to Mochizuki's page. Jose Brox (talk) 15:54, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

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I have restored the POV template that I placed a few days ago, which was almost immediately removed by editor Conjecture75. There needs to be broad agreement on the Talk page before the template can be removed. The article currently reads like an editorial condemning the mainstream view of the professional number theory community on the status of efforts to verify the ABC proof, essentially dismissing the legitimacy of the mainstream view without ever directly acknowledging its existence. It is not the place of Wikipedia to take sides in academic debates. Will Orrick (talk) 07:55, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Infobox

It is written in the infobox: "Known for [...] the author of a proof of abc conjecture". Since the proof is not (yet ?) accepted by the other mathematicians, it should be something like "Known for [...] the author of a proof of abc conjecture (still under review)" Valvino (talk) 10:02, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Edit Request

In the secodn paragraph of the article there's this sentence.

Due to its nature and applications, IUT has attracted a high level of attention of non-mathematicians.[2]

The reference it links to is broken, clicking on the link just leaves you on this same apge, it doesn't go anywhere and should be removed. along with the sentence attached. 109.152.240.99 (talk) 18:52, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

 Not done. The ref was always there. I fixed it so that the links should work now. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 19:10, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Why not just make the link in the Reference section an external link like the other references instead of making it highlight the bibliography link? 109.152.240.99 (talk) 17:24, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

"Experts"

"While there were no experts on IUT in 2012, their number increased to a two-digital one in 2017."

This does not appear to be supported by the reference ("several surveys exist" is all that is asserted, without references), and "experts" is not well-defined. In the article, an "expert" of IUT is said to be a mathematician who has spent substantially more than 300 hours (I'm not sure why 300 is special) studying the topic. This doesn't make any sense, as time spent on a topic does not indicate expertise, especially a difficult and controversial topic where the author says people continually make mistakes in comprehension. Even now, mathematicians who have studied IUT extensively are yet called "non-expert" by Mochizuki if they disagree with his proof, so it seems the most defining criteria of "expert" is whether or not you agree with him.

Also, "there were no experts on IUT in 2012" is obvious nonsense because the theory didn't even exist prior to this. It also suggests Mochizuki is not an expert in his own work, though this is a simple oversight.

For these reasons I'm blanking the sentence. TricksterWolf (talk) 23:59, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Oops. Article is protected, apparently, so I'm not blanking anything. But that sentence does not belong in the article. TricksterWolf (talk) 00:00, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

I've replaced that sentence with a summary of the current status. Let me know if you think it can be improved. Will Orrick (talk) 15:51, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Need to add info about acceptance of IUT papers for publication

Page is locked, so someone else will have to add this. It is mentioned already at Abc conjecture#Claimed proofs of abc, with a suitable reference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.215.39.157 (talk) 08:47, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

More specific in intro

I think the last sentence of the intro should be made more specific. For example, "Mochizuki developed inter-universal Teichmüller theory, which has attracted much attention among non-mathematicians, due to claims it provides a resolution of the abc conjecture." --Jordan Mitchell Barrett (talk) 05:24, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Sure, sounds reasonable. --JBL (talk) 14:25, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Non-mathematicians have taken an interest in the dispute over ABC, not IUTT itself. And only a small number of mathematicians have attempted to seriously study Mochizuki's IUTT papers, due to their length and peculiar style and the widespread belief that they are wrong. The claims of a resolution to ABC should be clearly described as disputed, the situation has advanced far past the point of generic uncertainty about a long proof, to one where Scholze and Stix have raised specific, apparently fatal, and unanswered objections that have stood since 2018. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 10:03, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

The IUT papers are published by the European Mathematical Society

This wiki article is in a terrible stage.

The IUT papers are now published by the European Mathematical Society: https://www.ems-ph.org/journals/show_issue.php?issn=0034-5318&vol=57&iss=1 This fact should be now included in this wiki page.

Citations of some sentences in the preface to these two special volumes of PRIMS can be included as well.

Also, maybe, citations to some of (the English translation of) numerous media articles can be included, e.g. this article https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASP355S0CP35ULBJ00Q.html

There are various sentences in the current version of this wiki page which simply do not pass standard wiki conditions for wiki articles.

In particular, when mentioning names of any mathematicians' opinions about IUT, it is crucial to check their level of expertise in the subject area of the theory. The main prerequisite for the IUT theory is anabelian geometry of hyperbolic curves over number fields. It is the fact that there are no active US mathematicians working in this area. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mediters3 (talk • contribs)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 14 April 2022

Early life

Shinichi Mochizuki was born to parents a Japanese scholar and business man Dr. Kiichi and a European American Anne Mochizuki (nee Rauch).[3] When he was five years old, Shinichi Mochizuki and his family left Japan to live in the United States. His father was Fellow of the Center for International Affairs and Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University (1974–76).[4] His elder sister Dr. Mia Mochizuki is also a scholar in art history (Ph.D. Yale University, 2001). --IyataYada (talk) 17:05, 14 April 2022 (UTC) IyataYada (talk) 17:05, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. That is not an independent reliable source. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:11, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

In particular, it (1) is not a reliable source for the information it contains, (2) has no direct connection to the subject of this article, and (3) does not establish that she is his sister. --JBL (talk) 17:13, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

References

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 2 July 2022

Add sources throughout, primarily to highlight the controversial proof solution.

egs.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/math-mystery-shinichi-mochizuki-and-the-impenetrable-proof/#

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/abc-conjecture-proved-but-still-out-of-reach/article7774334.ece

https://www2.math.upenn.edu/~pop/Research/files-Res/AnabPhen_20Dec10.pdf

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00998-2 Weavingowl (talk) 21:32, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:36, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

It should also be noted that the 2015 Scientific American article by Davide Castelvecchi is a reprint of a Nature article of the same year that is already cited in the Wikipedia article. The 2020 Nature article is also already cited in the Wikipedia article. The article in The Hindu came out right after the 2015 Nature article. It does contain a small amount of independent reporting—the author reached out to a number theorist at Harvard—but doesn't seem to say anything that isn't already stated (with sources) in the Wikipedia article. The document by Florian Pop was written in 2010, before the controversy began. It does have a lot to say about Mochizuki's earlier work, however. And while it is by a recognized expert, it appears not to have been published. Will Orrick (talk) 23:30, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

new paper 2023-02-18

9] On the Essential Logical Structure of Inter-universal Teichmuller Theory in Terms of Logical AND "∧"/Logical OR "∨" Relations: Report on the Occasion of the Publication of the Four Main Papers on

　　Inter-universal Teichmuller Theory. PDF NEW!! (2023-02-18)

I cannot add this to the list of papers in the main article, somebody who can should append this. 189.216.171.120 (talk) 01:18, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

You should edit your link, which doesn't appear to work.

This is not a paper in the sense of a mathematical research article and, as far as I am aware, it hasn't been published anywhere. Also, as implied by its title, the document is not new, having been out for at least a couple of years. I think the 2023-02-18 date refers to some recent small revisions to the manuscript.

Although many Wikipedia biographies of academics list some of the subject's writings, we usually don't strive for completeness (WP:NOTCV). Is there a reason why you want to list this particular work? Will Orrick (talk) 13:38, 7 April 2023 (UTC)