Wikipedia Cover Up: No One Can Explain Why Planes Stay in the Air

When I seek to put up a reference to the New Theory of Flight on the Wikipedia article on Lift (force), busy Wikipedians promptly censor this information. My discussion with Wikipedia can be followed at Talk: Lift force: New Theory of Flight. This is a long story which goes back to 2012: Mathematical Secret of Flight 6: Wikipedia Cover Up with related posts reporting on my interchange with John D. Anderson in 2012 on theories of flight.

What is covered up is what was reported in New York Times in 2003 STAYING ALOFT; What Does Keep Them Up There? and repeated in Scientific American as late as 2020: No One Can Explain Why Planes Stay in the Air.  

The Wikipedia article on Lift force is a lengthy illustration of what fluid dynamics expert John D. Anderson told NYT: There is no simple one-liner answer to this, rephrased in the headlines.The Wikipedia article thus presents a collection of theories for lift which are all shown to be incorrect, and in particular no theory claimed to be correct. This what also NASA does when presenting 3 theories of lift together with arguments showing that they are incorrect, but no theory claimed to be correct, as if removing all incorrect theories somehow would reveal a correct one. 

All of this is very remarkable: Engineers are building airplanes for mass transportation of people, but there is no commonly accepted science explaining what keeps planes in the air. Should Wikipedia present this fact or cover up what is revealed in popular science/press?

The New Theory of Flight gives a new explanation of the generation of large lift at small drag of a wing based on computing turbulent solutions to the Euler/Navier-Stokes equations with a slip boundary condition on the wing surface as crucial new element with double role of making the turbulent flow around the wing computable (by not asking for impossible resolution of a thin boundary layer) and explaining the generation of lift from low pressure on the upper wing surface from potential flow and lack of high pressure at the trailing edge by 3d rotational slip separation. The New Theory is presented in detail on The Secret of Flight and is backed by massive computation and detailed mathematical analysis featured on AIAA High Lift Prediction Workshops.

Question: Why does Wikipedian Mr Swordfish censor any reference to the well documented New Theory of Flight in a Wikipedia article on Lift (force), which is a lengthy for the public most confusing account of lift theories all shown/known to be incorrect? Who is behind Mr Swordfish with name and scientific credentials with whom I can have a scientific discussion? I pose these questions on the Talk page and ask for answers.

Answer from Mr Swordfish on Talk:

The very simple answer as to why the material was removed is that it does not conform to the various wikipedia policies regarding notability, sourcing, and possibly conflict of interest. Dolphin and I have provided links to the help pages that clearly explain the policies and the reasoning behind them. I would suggest you read them, especially WP:ORIGINAL, WP:NPOV, WP:VERIFY, and WP:AGF I'd also suggest you drop the allegations of censorship - they just make your case look weak.

I'm sorry that your theory has apparently not attracted the attention you feel it deserves, but wikipedia is not the place to drum up notoriety. In fact it works exactly the opposite way - first the material must become notable, and only then does it warrant inclusion here. In other words, you need to do your PR work elsewhere first; come back when you have the requisite citations. I'll repeat myself, in case you missed it above:

From reliable sources:

Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources. All analyses and interpretive or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary or tertiary source, and must not be an original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.

One very clear problem with your edits is that you haven't established notability. Feel free to come back when you can. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 21:30, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

My Response on Talk:

The only reasonable thing to do is to subject New Theory of Flight to scrutiny by some expert such as Doug McLean. My case is strong because I have hard evidence published in leading journals, while the Wikipedia article on Lift (force) is very weak as made very clear in the Talk statement above by Doug. The Wikipedia article starts out with: 

There are several ways to explain how an airfoil generates lift. Some are more complicated or more physically rigorous than others; some have been shown to be incorrect. For example, there are explanations based directly on Newton's laws of motion and explanations based on Bernoulli's principle. Either can be used to explain lift.

This is very serious disinformation Mr Swordfish. Very serious. You apparently agree with the statement above by Anderson: "There is actually no agreement on what generates the aerodynamic force known as lift". You thus know very well that there is no scientific explanation of lift agreed to be correct (only incorrect ones agreed to be incorrect), yet you let Wikipedia inform the people of the World that there is one, or even better that there are many although most (all?) of them are incorrect. You must understand that this against the most basic of all Wikipedia principles your refer to: Wikipedia should not mislead the people. Who is telling you to do that? To cover up what is a fact reported by experts in serious media. 

I want to bring this case to highest level at Wikipedia. It is very serious and of great concern to the people. How do I proceed?

Added to Talk

Here is state of art of standard fluid mechanics as expressed by Doug McLean in his book Understanding Aerodynamics concerning scientific understanding of lift:

So in one sense, the physics of lift is perfectly understood: Lift happens because the flow obeys the NS equations with a no-slip condition on solid surfaces. On the other hand, physical explanations of lift, without math, pose a more difficult problem. Practically everyone, the nontechnical person included, has heard at least one nonmathematical explanation of how an airfoil produces lift when air flows past it. Such explanations fall into several general categories, with many variations. Unfortunately, most of them are either incomplete or wrong in one way or another. And some give up at one point or another and resort to math. This situation is a consequence of the general difficulty of explaining things physically in fluid mechanics, a problem we’ve touched on several times in the preceding chapters.

We read that generation of lift of a wing is a secret deeply hidden in the Navier-Stokes equations with no slip (unfortunately uncomputable because of very thin boundary layer), while scientific understanding in physical terms is a difficult problem, apparently unresolved. 

The New Theory of Flight reveals the secret of lift hidden in the Euler/Navier-Stokes equations with slip (without boundary layer and thus computable) in a description of slightly viscous incompressible flow around a long wing as potential flow modified by 3d rotational slip separation at the trailing edge into a turbulent wake, with potential flow generating large lift by sticking to the upper surface as a consequence of slip combined with 3d rotational slip separation at the trailing edge without the pressure rise of full potential flow destroying lift. 

In short: Standard CFD as Navier-Stokes with no-slip is uncomputable and beyond scientific reach and so hides the secret of lift, while Euler/Navier-Stokes with slip is computable and opens to reveal the true secret in a New Theory of Flight in the form of potential flow modified by 3d rotational slip separation. It is as simple as that. Details on Secret of Flight.

The split between mathematics (theory) and practice so clearly expressed above by McLean shows that the description made more than 50 years ago by Chemistry Nobel Laureate Hinshelwood (1997-1968) of practical fluid mechanics (hydraulics) describing phenomena (drag, lift), which cannot be explained, from theoretical fluid mechanics explaining phenomena (zero drag, lift), which cannot be observed,  is valid still today.  This is the background to the New Theory of Flight, which unites theoretical and practical fluid mechanics into one science for the first time.

Questions to Wikipedia

Before taking the case to higher levels I have posed the following questions on the Talk page to clarify the standpoint of Wikipedia (answers will be reported):

@Mr. swordfish,Dolphin51: Before I take the case further I pose the following basic questions connecting to e.g the Scientific American article with headline "No One Can Explain Why Planes Stay in the Air. Do recent explanations solve the mysteries of aerodynamic lift?" (i) Is this a correct description of the state of the science of lift according to Wikipedia? If not, what is incorrect? (ii) Is there an accepted scientific theory/explanation of the generation of lift at small drag of an airplane wing? If yes, which is this theory/explanation? (iii) Mr. Swordfish states above "It is true that there is no simple, correct, and complete theory of lift". Does this mean that there is a non-simple, correct and complete theory, if so which, or no such thing? (iv) The Wikipedia article starts out: "There are several ways to explain how an airfoil generates lift. Some are more complicated or more physically rigorous than others; some have been shown to be incorrect. For example, there are explanations based directly on Newton's laws of motion and explanations based on Bernoulli's principle. Either can be used to explain lift". There seems to be a contradiction between (i)+(ii)+(iii) and (iv), that is a contradiction between the statements (a) There is a commonly accepted scientific explanation of lift, and (b) There is no commonly accepted scientific explanation of lift. Which of (a) and (b) is the view of Wikipedia? I want a clear answer, not handwaving that (c) they are both correct since there are many theories carrying different elements, some true some false. It is against this background the New Theory of Flight stands out as the first explanation in both mathematical and physical terms of the generation of lift at small drag of a wing with solid documentation in the scientific literature, which you remove from visibility on Wikipedia. The matter is serious. The role of Wikepedia is to give correct information to the people, not double messages that there both is and is not a scientific explanation of lift. Ok?SecretofFlight (talk) 06:57, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

On Cover Up

Of course the Wikipedia article on Lift (force) is controlled by the fluid mechanics community. Of course this community wants to cover up that there still is no scientific theory of lift more than 100 years after the Wright Brothers took off in 1903, through the Wikipedia article telling people: There are several ways to explain how an airfoil generates lift. Some are more complicated or more physically rigorous than others; some have been shown to be incorrect. For example, there are explanations based directly on Newton's laws of motion and explanations based on Bernoulli's principle. Either can be used to explain lift. The true fact that there is no theory of lift and then no theory of flight is deadly poison to a whole field of science injected already 1755 through D'Alembert's Paradox, which remained unresolved until 2008 when Hoffman and Johnson as outsiders to the community presented a resolution followed by a New Theory of Flight both published in Journal of Mathematical Fluid Mechanics and thoroughly backed by computation and mathematical analysis.

  

 

 

Svar 3 av Utbildningsdepartementet

Här är svar från Utbildningsdepartementet på mitt tidigare brev till Anna Ekström om skolmatematikens kris, som Anna Ekström sagt sig vara lyckligen omedveten om. Den senaste turbulensen kring Sveriges resultat i PISA18 ger perspektiv på den försköning av Sveriges prestationer som utövats av både Skolverk och Utbildningsminister. Soppan ifrågasätts av Oppositionen i Utbildningsutskottets utfrågningar av Anna Ekström och Peter Fredriksson, medan S försvarar med att svensk skola står stark trots PISA, vilket framgår av svaret. Allt är lugnt!

Hej

 

Tack för din fråga på ett tidigare svar. För regeringen är det viktigt att kunskapsresultaten stärks inom matematik såväl som i andra ämnen i skolan. Som du själv nämner i ditt brev pågick under 2012-2016 satsningen Matematiklyftet som var en fortbildning genom kollegialt lärande för alla lärare i Sverige som undervisar i matematik. Satsningen utvärderades av Umeå universitet. Du kan ta del av utvärderingen via Skolverkets hemsida: Utvärdering av Matematiklyftets resultat – Slutrapport - Skolverket

 

Därtill arbetar regeringen med att utveckla ett professionsprogram som syftar till att stärka professionens kompetens och därmed höja kunskapsresultaten. Arbetet har pågått en längre tid och bereds för närvarande i Regeringskansliet. Regeringen har fört dialog med olika nyckelaktörer både enskilt och inom ramen för Samling för fler lärare. Av den sakpolitiska överenskommelsen mellan Socialdemokraterna, Centerpartiet, Liberalerna och Miljöpartiet de gröna framgår att programmen ska inrättas med grund i betänkandet Med undervisningsskicklighet i centrum – ett ramverk för lärares och skolledares professionella utveckling (SOU 2018:17). Du kan ta del av utredningen här: Med undervisningsskicklighet i centrum – ett ramverk för lärares och rektorers professionella utveckling - Regeringen.se

 

Det mesta av det faktiska innehållet i programmen behöver tas fram och beslutas i nära dialog med professionerna.

 

Med vänlig hälsning

 

Alexander Widergren

Departementssekreterare

Utbildningsdepartementet 

A ToE for Fluid Mechanics

Einsteins ideal as a Theory of Everything ToE is a mathematical model of physics without any parameters. 

The standard model of particle physics contains 18 parameters. It is a very complicated model. To determine the parameters experimentally is impossible.

The standard model of isotropic linear elasticity contains 2 parameters. This is a very simple model but for a non- isotropic body the number of parameters includes 18 parameters. 

To be a useful model the values of its parameters must be supplied as input determined from experiments or more basic model, which in general is very difficult. The 2 parameters of isotropic linear elasticity can be determined from simple tests, but the 18 parameters for non-isotropic linear elasticity are difficult to determine, not to speak of non-linear elasticity and all the parameters of the standard model. 

Are there any parameter-free models of physics? A basic example is a circle described as the set of points in a plane with a certain distance to a given mid-point from which the value of Pi can be computed as the quotient between circumference and diameter. That is a very simple model. Is there any model of more complex physics which is parameter-free? 

Yes, there is one, and maybe this is the only one: Euler's equations for incompressible fluid flow are expressed in terms of velocity and pressure without any parameter: Input is geometry, in/out-flow conditions and external forces, but no parameter, since viscosity is set to zero.   

The remarkable thing is now that the drag and lift of a body moving through a slightly viscous fluid like air and water can accurately be predicted by computing turbulent solutions to the Euler equations with only geometry of the body as input. This is like computing the ratio of circumference/diameter of a circle (that is computing Pi), but just more astounding. Drag and lift coefficients (scaling with $speed^2$) of a body only depend on the geometry of the body! No parameter input needed! See Computational Turbulent Incompressible Flow and Breakthrough of predictive simulation.

The Euler equations for incompressible flow is a ToE for slightly viscous incompressible flow like air (subsonic) and water.  This is remarkable. Is this is the only ToE in physics.

Well, Newton's law of gravitation contains the gravitational constant G connecting gravitational force to mass as parameter, but may be viewed as a ToE in the sense of correctly predicting that all bodies independent of composition move the same way subject to gravitation. 

PS Von Neuman famously claimed that he (in principle) could model an elephant with 4 parameters, and make it wiggle its trunk with a 5th, but in practice how would he determine the parameters?  Elephant experiments are costly and cumbersome.

Euler Was Right, Prandtl Was Wrong I

Euler vs Prandtl

In 1755 the great mathematician Euler formulated the Euler equations for slightly viscous nearly incompressible flow (of air and water) with the following prophetic declaration:

• My two equations contain all what is contained in the theory of fluid mechanics. It is not the principles of mechanics we lack to pursue this analysis but only Analysis (computation), which is not sufficiently developed for this purpose.  

Euler's equations are formulated in terms of fluid velocity and fluid pressure depending on space and time as an expression of force balance (Newton's 2nd Law) and incompressibility complemented by a slip boundary condition with only pressure forces from a solid wall meeting the fluid, that is, with zero skin friction allowing the tangential flow velocity to be non-zero restricting only the normal flow velocity to be zero on a wall.  Euler's equations are parameter-free (formally zero viscosity), thus meeting Einstein's ideal of a mathematical model. The only force acting on fluid particles is pressure and shear forces are assumed to be negligible.  Euler made the assumption about zero skin friction from experiments showing very small skin friction in slightly viscous flow with massive evidence in modern times. 

Eulers adversary d'Alembert quickly crushed Euler's grand plan by showing that Euler's equations admitted certain solutions (potential solutions) showing zero net forces (drag, lift) of a body moving through air or water, in direct contradiction to observation. This was coined d'Alembert's Paradox which from start, as expressed by Chemistry Nobel Laureate Hinshelwood:

• separated practical fluid mechanics (hydraulics) describing phenomena (drag, lift), which cannot be explained, from theoretical fluid mechanics explaining phenomena (zero drag, lift), which cannot be observed.       

Zero lift is incompatible with flight and so d'Alembert's Paradox had to be resolved, in particular after powered human flight was shown to be possible by the Wright brothers in 1903, and so the young fluid mechanician Prandtl presented a resolution in a sketchy 8-page conference contribution in 1904, where he discriminated potential flow with zero skin friction claiming that a real fluid always meets a solid wall with zero tangential velocity named no-slip.  Prandtl thus "resolved" d'Alembert's Paradox by declaring that Euler's equations with slip had to be replaced by the Navier-Stokes equations including small viscosity and no-slip. But no-slip was an ad hoc assumption which Prandtl could not justify since the exact nature of the microscopic contact between fluid and wall was unknown to him and so has remained into our days. 

Prandtl in 1904 with his self-built fluid test channel resolving d'Alembert's Paradox.

Anyway, the scientific community was by Prandtl relieved from a main headache making theory of fluid mechanics into a joke and accordingly Prandtl was named Father of Modern Fluid Mechanics based on the Navier-Stokes equations with no-slip and not Euler's equations with slip. 

But there was one main caveat: The Navier-Stokes equations with no-slip have solutions with boundary layers so thin that computational resolution is impossible with any forseeable computational power.  Prandtl's resolution thus came with the cost of making Computational Fluid Dynamics CFD into an impossibility asking for resolution of atomistic scales in a macroscopic setting.

In 2010, Hoffman and Johnson published in Journal of Mathematical Fluid Mechanics a different resolution of d'Alembert's paradox showing that the reason zero-drag/lift of potential flow cannot observed, is that potential flow (in fact any laminar flow) is unstable and thus turns into turbulent flow. This was shown by computing turbulent solutions to Eulers equations with slip with drag and lift in close correspondence to observations supported by stability analysis, as exposed in detail in the book Computational Turbulent Incompressible Flow. As a spin off a New Theory of Flight was developed revealing the true Secret of Flight in physical terms, very different from the unphysical lifting line theory advocated by Prandtl. 

Since then massive evidence has been accumulated by Johan Jansson showing that computing turbulent solutions of Euler's equations with slip opens basically all of slightly viscous nearly incompressible flow to predictive simulation without parameter input and need to resolve thin no-slip boundary layers, thus with readily available computing power, all along Euler's prophecy. More evidence: HighLift Workshop.

Euler was thus right, and he understood that he just had to wait for computing power to see his prophecy become true. It took 250 years, but now it is here.

It means that Prandtl was wrong claiming drag and lift to be effects of thin no-slip boundary layers thereby making CFD into an impossibility. 

Question

How will the fluid dynamics community react to replacing Prandtl by Euler as Father of Modern Fluid Mechanics thus changing CFD from impossible to possible? 

Further Important Facts

Turbulent solutions to Euler's equations are computed as best possible approximate solutions in the sense of having residuals which are small in a weak sense and not too large in a strong sense, in a situation when all solutions with small residual in a strong sense (laminar solutions) are unstable and do not persist over time. We thus face a new situation where only turbulent flow is computable and laminar not, as an expression of the fluctuating nature of turbulence, as seen in a waving flag showing the only motion which can persist. The control of the residual in strong sense introduces a viscous effect as a form of turbulent viscosity set by computation alone without need to model or measure turbulent viscosity beyond human comprehension.  

Euler was a mathematician while Prandtl as Father of Modern Fluid Mechanics was more of an engineer. Replacing Prandtl by Euler means freeing the full power of mathematics with computation in a rare example of parameter-free mathematical model with very rich applicability.

Standard CFD under a Planck dictate of no-slip has developed complicated wall models as well as turbulence models including many parameters, and an agreement has been made to adjust parameters to give  50% or more of total drag to skin friction. Turbulent Euler computations with zero skin friction show correct drag in a large variety of situations, which is incompatible with the 50% skin friction from standard CFD.

Total drag consists of pressure drag and skin friction drag. Turbulent Euler computations show that pressure drag dominates skin friction by a factor of at least 10, and so standard CFD claiming 50% skin friction must underestimate pressure drag by a factor 2. The CFD community is now wrestling under this contradiction. The investments in standard CFD are huge and will loose their value if Euler is allowed to take over from Prandtl...Compare with posts on Prandtl Medal.

Incompressible flow is well captured by the Euler equations  for Reynolds numbers (scaling with 1/viscosity) larger than about 500.000 associated with the so called drag crisis when drag of a bluff body drastically decreases with a factor 2-3 as the boundary condition effectively turns into slip from limited velocity strains, with late separation and small wake of low pressure, in particular with lift/drag around 15 for a wing allowing flight at affordable power.

Euler vs Navier-Stokes: What is viscosity?

The Navier-Stokes equations connect fluid velocity strains (derivatives in space) with shear forces through a positive coefficient of viscosity $\nu$ as a parameter to be supplied as input, assumed to be constant independent of fluid velocity in the basic case, but in general with a very complex unknown non-linear dependence on local flow velocities. Formally $\nu =0$ in the parameter-free Euler's equations.

In slightly viscous flow the coefficient of viscosity is small with a Reynolds number $Re = \frac{UL}{\nu}$ beyond drag crisis (bigger than 100.000- 500.000) with $U$ typical flow speed and $L$ typical spatial scale L. 

The Navier-Stokes equations can be complemented by a (skin) friction boundary condition with a friction parameter $\beta$ connecting (tangential) shear stress to tangential flow velocity, with slip corresponding to $\beta =0$ and effective no-slip for $\beta >1$, thus covering a range from slip to no-slip with important effects on flow separation and drag (as exposed in Computational Turbulent Incompressible Flow). 

To determine the viscosity as input to the Navier-Stokes equation experimentally or theoretically has shown to be virtually impossible in the case of slightly viscous flow, which is always partially turbulent with a very complex expression of viscosity. Using Navier-Stokes equations for true prediction of slightly viscous flow has not been shown to be possible. With parameter fitting in viscosity models standard CFD can match measured drag, but generally fail in blind tests without prior knowledge of the correct value to match.

Computing turbulent solution to the Euler equations includes automatic modeling of viscosity

through weighted strong residual control as a dissipative effect with a complex flow dependence beyond viscous shear stress.  It appears as a solution to the open problem of turbulence modeling. In particular, size of the strong residual measures the turbulent dissipation as a mesh independent quantity meeting Kolmogorov's conjecture. 

The Navier-Stokes equation model (1823) with constant positive viscosity is generally viewed to be a better/more complete model then the Euler equations (1755) with formally zero viscosity. This was picked up by Prandtl in 1904 using in particular no-slip from the presence of positive viscosity as a way to discriminate potential flow and get around d'Alembert's paradox. But the more complete model showed to be boundary layer uncomputable and asking for parameter input and so non-predictive, while the basic Euler model showed to be more useful by being both computable (no boundary layers) and predictive as parameter free. 

The ultimate quest for a physicist is to find a Theory of Everything ToE as a parameter free model explaining all of basic physics. Computing turbulent solutions to the Euler equations is a ToE for fluid mechanics. 

Ämneslärarutbildningar i Matematik: Bristande Kvalitet enligt UKÄ

Universitetskanslersämbetet UKÄ har avslutat sin granskning av ämneslärarutbildningar inledd 2018. Följande utbildningar bedöms ha bristande kvalitet:

Ämneslärare matematik gymnasium:

• Göteborgs Universitet
• Högskolan i Kristianstad
• Luleå Tekniska Universitet
• Lunds Universitet
• Uppsala Universitet.

Ämneslärare matematik åk 7-9:

• Göteborgs Universitet
• Högskolan i Kristianstad.

Dystert, särskilt vad gäller gymnasielärare. Ytterligare uttryck för skolmatematikens kris. 

Lösningen på krisen består av fortbildning för lärare i matematik för det digital samhället: DigiMat. Läs och begrunda!

Pisa, Anna Ekström och Peter Fredriksson

Anna Ekström har blixt-inkallats till Utbildningsutskottet med anledning av två promemorior av tjänstemän på Utbildningsdepartmentet om felaktigheter i PISA 2018, som Ekström mörkat i sin presentation inför svenska folket av en påtaglig resultatförbättring jämfört med PISA 2015. Speciellt kan det vara så att den lilla uppgången från 2015 för matematikämnet i själva verket innebär fortsatt nedgång och fördjupning av skolmatematikens kris.    

Både Anna Ekström och Skolverkets generaldirektör Peter Fredriksson har som framgår av tidigare poster visat sig vara totalt ointresserade av möjlig lösning av skolmatematikens kris. Ekström säger sig inte känna till någon kris alls och Fredriksson säger sig "inte ha möjlighet" att betrakta frågan överhuvudtaget. 

Det är inte så ansvaret för skolan skall bäras. Frågan är om Ekström och Fredriksson kan sitta kvar. Tänk om det tillsattes ny ledning med vilja att lyfta svensk skolmatematik. Så bra det vore för elever, föräldrar, lärare och samhälle.

  

Hopplös Traditionell Skolmatematik

 SvD meddelar svenska folket att

• Satsningar på matte ger inte effekt.
• Sjunkande betyg i matte – trots extra undervisningstimmar och matematiksatsningar i skolan.

hämtat från en ny rapport av Sveriges Ingenjörer Att Räkna eller Räknas Bort.

Finns det någon väg ur denna hopplöshet? Ja, DigiMat visar en väg fram emot en ny skolmatematik med nytt mål, innehåll och mening utformad för det digitala samhället (som bygger på digital matematik). 

Problemet är att hopplösheten är så total att ingen vågar tro att skolmatematiken kan lyftas. Varken universitetsmatematiker (som inte bryr sig om skolans matematik) eller skolmatematiker som inte förstår att den traditionella skolmatematiken spelat ut sin roll.  Och då inte någon annan heller. Generaldirektör Peter Fredriksson på Skolverket säger sin "inte ha möjlighet" att ta del av möjlig lösning, medan Utbildningsminister Anna Ekström säger sig inte ha hört talas om någon kris alls. Så kan det vara i dagens Sverige,

Nytt brev till Anna Ekström (se tidigare brev)

Till Anna Ekström

Utbildningsminister

Du säger att Du inte vet "vad den kris som pågår består av”. Det finns många uttryck för skolmatematikens kris, som Du borde känna till,  det senaste i en ny rapport av Sveriges Ingenjörer, som kommenterats med stora rubriker i pressen.

Jag upprepar min begäran om möte för att presentera en möjlig lösning på den kris som varje dag drabbar alla elever i skolan och som gör matematiklärarens arbetsuppgift närmast omöjlig. 

  

Jag önskar svar på detta mail med bekräftelse att Du uppmärksammat krisen, som första steg mot en lösning.

Hälsningar

Claes Johnson

prof em i tillämpad matematik

    

Real Quantum Mechanics

Real Quantum Mechanics RealQM offers a new model of atoms and molecules as a classical continuum mechanical model as a system of non-overlapping one-electron wave-functions/charge densities meeting at a Bernoulli free boundary condition with homogenous Neumann conditions from both sides combined with wave-function/charge density continuity. The distribution of electrons is determined by attractive Coulomb kernels forces and repulsive inter-electron Coulomb forces. The model describes non-radiating ground states with stationary charge distributions as well as radiating superpositions of excited states with time varying charge distributions. 

You are invited to test RealQM in basic atomistic form in a DigiMat App:

RealQM as a computable system in 3d is to be compared with the standard model in the form of a Schrödinger equation in 3N space dimension för N electrons, which is not computable for N>3. 

Osaklig Kritik av DigiMat i Läraren

Så har då min debattartikel i Läraren Så kan Skolmatematikens Kris Lösas försetts med en Replik författad av Johan Wästlund och Rebecka Östergren Beijer med titel 

• Claes Johnsons lösning på skolmatematikens problem är inte seriös

vilken jag givit följande Svar Direkt i Läraren:

• Claes Johnson menar att repliken inte bygger på någon form av saklig granskning av DigiMat och meddelar att han inbjuder till sådan. Vidare skriver han att "om fortbildning i matematik+programmering (med DigiMat som en möjlig modell) kan lösa skolmatematikens kris, så vore mycket vunnet för både elever, lärare och samhälle."

Jag har ställt följande frågor till Johan Wästlund som kommer att publiceras:

1. Har Du granskat DigiMat i någon detalj? Vilken i så fall? Vad var utfallet?
2. Vad vet Du om mitt verk som akademiker? Vad vet Du om mitt “renommé” som akademiker?
3. Vilken är den skarpa kritik som Du påstår riktats mot BodyandSoul? Är Olle Häggström Din källa? Vem annars?
4. Vad är det i mitt arbete som inte är “seriöst”? Om det inte finns något sådant, varför påstår Du det med stora bokstäver?
5. Vad driver Dig till en osaklig kampanj mot min person och verk, med uppenbart syfte att skada?

PS BodyandSoul (Vol 1-4) har publicerats av Springer med Vol 1-3 översatta till tyska. Hela serien är också översatt till kinesiska. 

Svar av Johan Wästlund på facebook:

Frågor, frågor, frågor. Detta är vår kritik i ett nötskal: Det blir bara frågor av alltihop. Kritiken gäller ditt sätt att marknadsföra DigiMat, inte materialet i sig. Det vet jag fortfarande nästan ingenting om, för du har ju inte velat berätta.
Scrolla uppåt i tråden och titta. Här kunde vi ha diskuterat DigiMat. Folk var intresserade. Men inte du, verkar det.
Du har fått massor av frågor om DigiMat: Var har det använts? Skolor? Universitet? Finns något skrivet om hur det har gått? Vad består materialet av? Lektioner? Kursbok? Övningar? Hel kurs? Är det fullständigt på svenska? Hur kopplar det till centralt innehåll? Är det tänkt att ersätta befintliga läromedel, eller som komplement?
Men du verkar inte själv vilja prata om materialet. Du har lämnat det mesta obesvarat för att istället fråga tillbaka om annat: Varför lyssnar inte Skolverket? Är detta bra för Sverige? Vill vi testa DigiMat? Vill vi ha ett zoommöte? Anser inte vi också att det är kris? Vilket material använder vi idag? Fungerar det bra? Hur ser vi på den nya läroplanen och hur ska vi uppfylla den? Tycker vi att vi lyckas med det? Vad är det för mening med en läroplan? Ser vi inget behov av reformer? Vad är vårt perspektiv? Och vet vi vad "kacka i eget bo" egentligen betyder?
Till slut är det bara frågetecken kvar i hela tråden.
Och nu fiskar du efter vad jag vet om dig, och varifrån jag kan ha hört skvaller om en historia som uppmärksammades i rikspressen och som vem som helst kan googla fram olåsta artiklar om. Din paranoida fråga 5 är fel ställd, jag är helt ointresserad av din person och numera nästan lika ointresserad av ditt verk. Resten, i den mån det inte redan har klargjorts, får vi addera till raden av obesvarade frågor.
Nu lämnar jag den här diskussionen.

Mitt svar på facebook:

Johan, Du säger att Du inte vet någonting om DigiMat men likväl går Du ut i media med budskapet att mitt arbete inte är seriöst och inte skall tas på allvar. Med en sådan utgångspunkt bör Du väl dra tillbaka repliken, om Du vill vara seriös, och det vill Du väl? Vad jag önskar är att DigiMat tas upp till seriös granskning och det innebär att man sätter sig in i materialet och använder den sakkunskap man har. Du medger att skolmatematiken har ”problem” och då skall Du väl inte rakt av misskreditera förslag till lösning av utan någon som helst granskning.

Mitt brev till Läraren

Hej Hampus 

Johan meddelar i sitt svar att han fortfarande vet nästan ingenting om materialet i sig i DigiMat.  

Detta till trots annonserar han i Läraren stort att mitt material inte är seriöst och inte kan tas på allvar

och sänder därmed misstro och misstänkliggörande utan saklig grund till skada för mitt material och min person. 

Jag tycker att det rimliga, med detta klargörande från Johan som utgångspunkt, är att Du ber Johan dra tillbaka sin artikel eftersom den inte är sakligt grundad. Tycker Du också att det är det naturliga?

Vänligen

Claes  

Svar till Anna Ekström

Här är mitt svar på brev från Anna Ekström:

Till Utbildningsminister Anna Ekström

Tack för svar via Alexander Widegren. 

Svaret antyder att Du som Utbildningsminister inte är medveten om att skolmatematiken befinner sig kris, och verkar mena att så inte kan vara fallet med hänvisning till PISA2018. 

Låt mig erinra om att dessa resultat ifrågasatts genom påståenden om att vissa elever sorterats bort. 

Vad gäller krisens natur är den omvittnad av många sedan länge, inte minst genom de olika (alla resultatlösa) räddningsaktioner som iscensatts under åren, med Mattelyftet som 

senaste verkningslösa insats.  

Krisen har på senare tid förvärrats genom att den nya läroplanen 2018 med matematik+programmering, stannat på pappret och inte genomförts i praktiken, 

detta eftersom erforderlig fortbildning inte kommit till stånd. Detta påvisas av Lärarnas Riksförbund i undersökningen Programmering - en skolreform utan program. 

 Lärarnas Riksförbund ställer så krav att Skolverket skall fylla sitt ansvar och se till att erforderlig fortbildning genomförs. 

När jag söker kontakt med Skolverket och speciellt Generaldirektör Peter Fredriksson i detta ärende, i min roll som framträdande universitetsmatematiker med långvarigt

engagemang för matematikutbildning,  möts jag av kalla handen. Varje form av diskussion avfärdas. Skolverket är stängt. Skolverket vägrar att ta sitt ansvar och låter krisen fortgå.

Som Utbildningsminister bär Du det yttersta ansvaret. Jag önskar direkt möte med Dig för att framföra mina synpunkter. Det är inte bra för Sverige med en skolmatematik i ständig kris. 

Du kan inte som Peter Fredriksson säga att Du “inte har möjlighet” till möte. Det finns möjlighet att lösa krisen. Du har ett ansvar att lyssna.

Hälsningar

Claes Johnson prof em i tillämpad matematik KTH