> One trisector in Ohio refused to send me his construction because he thought that the trisection was worth money and he was afraid that I would steal it. For revenge, I put him in tough with a trisector in Texas, but as revenge it was not successful: they corresponded and each concluded that the other was not making sense.
Accordingly, there was a trisector that had a testimonial from a professor of mathematics at a real university stating to have carefully checked and found no fallacy. And another, who also claimed to be able to duplicate a cube and prove Euclid's fifth postulate, was a president at an otherwise respectable university. This is totally astounding.
@user21820 If you happen to be a member of the Editorial board of any reputable journal of mathematics, you are bound to see such examples regularly pass by you... Rule number 1 is to never engage them about the content of their "paper": they have vastly more time and energy to spend on the matter than you. And any answer they receive, however damning, is seen as a badge of honor: "See, my work is discussed by established mathematicians..."
I suddenly wondered whether it would be amusing to regularly publish a tiny article in a reputable mathematics journal along the lines of "In the past X months, Y cranks have sent in their futile attempts to trisect an angle. The least bad attempt has an error of Z degrees when tested." (And of course, never mention any of their names or attempts.)
@XanderHenderson This is an interesting crank. Not only is the poster linking to his own 'paper', it seems useless, and his twitter account makes him look at bit like mathematicsaminphysics.
@XanderHenderson, @Did, @user21820, @ZacharySelk In relation to Xander's last link, the same author authored this and this, same pattern: equation + "I can't do it", are open for closure.
@XanderHenderson: it's always surprising to me the number of people who think that the vote on an answer somehow reflects on the answerer rather than just on the specific answer
Or the number who think one person can significant affect someone else's rep by voting
There have been quite a few repeat offenders, come back with new accounts. @quid is trying to look for patterns. In any case, @Xander, keep it in mind. Yes, it is possible to flag a vote, by flagging the answer which was downvoted.
@XanderHenderson it can be helpful to do this. But needless to say please do not flag each and every vote. The one on the highly voted one looks odd though, I agree. That said, we cannot do much about a single vote. But if a pattern emerges action can be taken.
A moderator answered the question, then, when it was pointed out that it is a competition question, modified their answer, but seems to have done nothing further to deal with the question. :\
I suspect you can still just vote to close, like I did. Actually it is worth looking through the other questions by that account, I think there are several PSQ questions there.
