The OEIS will be on holiday for the rest of the year!

[cino hilliard]

>From: Ralf Stephan <ralf at ark.in-berlin.de>
>Reply-To: ralf at ark.in-berlin.de
>To: Lßbos ElemÚr <Labos at ana.sote.hu>
>CC: njas at research.att.com, seqfan at ext.jussieu.fr
>Subject: Re: The OEIS will be on holiday for the rest of the year!
>Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 10:24:10 +0100
>
> > These criteria are purely formal and not related to quality.
>
>In fact, I'm sure quality is the main point here, and
>I would like to encourage Neil in sticking to this policy.
>It might even motivate me to return to work with the OEIS.
>

Patrick Henry:
"Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for 
me, give me liberty or give me death!"

Me:
I am saddened by this approach to deign quality and importance on sequences 
in view of
the 90-100 thousand sub quality sequences already sat down and made up and 
submitted. if there are 2000 quality, important sequences out there it would 
be a surprise. Perhaps a sequence or two
from each of the "great" mathematicians ever may have importance and quality 
but only from a
historical perspective.  How do we define quality in a jumbling of integers? 
Why don't we use
other words like beauty? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder? How is one 
formula or generating
algorithm more or less beautiful or have more quality than another? Who can 
be so arrogant as to ordain, decree quality on one insignificant concoction 
over another?

Another overworked word: important. Who can judge in an increasingly 
changing world what
is important in a forced contrivance of numerology?  Who could rank the 
known sequences by
order of importance? What would be the criteria, justifications, reasoning, 
fickle? I like chevrolet
cars some others may like Rolls. How can we even discuss quality and 
importance in a matter of
such high personal genetically defined preference?

As humans, how do we learn best? We ask questions. That is all a sequence 
is. It is a question from
someone who is curious about his/her invention. A question of what,where and 
why. What is this
string of numbers? Where or who else knows about it? Why does it behave that 
way?

This reasoning leads to other questions? What is mathematics? What is 
geography? what is truth?
Most of you probably do not know the textbook definition of geography. Just 
word roots give you
a clue. Geo-earth, graph - mapping, drawing. So geography is the study of 
the earth would be
an intelligent answer. But what about the Moon or mars the ocean? so, 
geography is defined as the
study of PLACE. It is the study of places in such a way that one place has 
characteristics no other
place has. This uniqueness definition of geography allows us to categorize 
places in the real world.
We know that a dessert is a dry and hot and cold place. A dessert is 
different from Manhattan which
can also be hot and cold and dry. Can we do a qualitative comparison between 
an Arizona dessert
and Manhattan? But of course! Which has more quality? Which is more 
important? Indeed, we
can pursue this argument to the stars and to the grains of sand on a beach. 
But no matter how
hard we try to qualify one place over the other we are left with the 
ferocious travesty of doubt
in our conclusion as to which place should be discarded as intellectual 
refuse.

Analogously, mathematics can be defined as the study of the patterns in the 
collections of symbols
in such a way one collection has characteristics no other collection has.

Sequences are patterns. the desert sequence my seem unimportant to the 
Manhattan sequence
which is well known and admired (or hated) by so many. Yet I cannot predict 
the future. I do not
know that the desert sequence may someday bloom into a relevant reality to 
be admired and
revered by all.

The earth used to be flat. Who would dare deny it. It also used to be center 
of the
universe for hundreds of years. The heavier object falls faster than the 
lighter one. The
pythagoreans were radical - no roots allowed. What was really going on here? 
It was an assault
on creativity. Thinking WAS creativity and those in power did not want it 
undermined with new
ideas that were conceived outside of their circles.

All numbers are interesting aren't they? Of course! We all know the 
induction proof and the
amusing story of "after a long time plucking the numbers from U save one for 
interest's sake."

This is the same for generative sequences. There is no such thing as an 
uninteresting sequence,
some are just more interesting than others.

It is my estimate that many of the submitters to the OEIS do it for fun and 
the joy of the EUREKA
that follows. This was me. I was doing it for fun and the EUREKA!

I would be curious if anyone else submits sequences for fun and the joy of 
EUREKA?

CLH