Letters to the Editor those assembled to model climate American territories of the dissolved Flim-Flam in the Name of change. Unfortunately, though one Moscow Tartary. Science might expect economists to be taking And now we ask the question: when Concerning the Notices article “Math- the lead when it comes to growth, and how did the United States come ematical methods in the study of his- they seem to be missing in action. into existence? Let us pay special torical chronology,” by Florin Diacu, However, Europe is starting to see attention to the time of formation of April 2013 issue: conferences on “de-growth” as it the USA. The Encyclopedic Dictionary The Notices has disgraced itself by deals with high fuel costs and one tells us that “in the process of the wars allowing its good name to be used in debt crisis after another. for independence in North America connection with the crackpot histori- in 1775–1783…an independent state cal theories of Anatoly Fomenko. The —Richard H. Burkhart, Ph.D. was created, the USA (1776).” And fact that Fomenko is a mathematician Mathematics independent now we realize unexpectedly that does not in any way lend credibility researcher, Seattle, WA formation of the USA surprisingly to his pseudoscientific publications, [email protected] EXACTLY COINCIDES WITH THE END which should interest the scientific OF THE WAR WITH “PUGACHEV” IN community only insofar as they pro- (Received April 2, 2013) RUSSIA. Let us recall that “Pugachev” vide a cautionary illustration of the was defeated in 1775. Now everything manner in which membership in a “New Chronology’’ of Nosovskii is in its place. Apparently, the “Inde- national scientific academy can be and Fomenko in the Notices pendence war” in North America was misused to promulgate pure non- The April 2013 issue of the No- a war with the weakening American sense. Suffice it to point out that tices contains an article by Florin Russian Horde. The Romanovs at- Fomenko asserts that the entirety Diacu, “Mathematical methods in tacked the Horde from the East, and of Chinese history is a fabrication of the study of historical chronology”. Americans “struggling for indepen- eighteenth-century Jesuits, that all Most of this article is an exposition dence” attacked it from the West. ancient Roman and Greek artifacts of the “research” of A. Fomenko and Now they teach us that Americans are actually forgeries produced dur- G. Nosovskii on mathematical meth- were fighting for “independence from ing the Renaissance, and that the ods in chronology. According to England”. In reality this was a war for New Testament was written before F. Diacu, this research is “published the partition of enormous American the Old. Needless to say, such asser- in a mathematical journal that has lands of the Moscow Tartary, which tions are so thoroughly incompatible reasonably good ranking.” F. Diacu found themselves without the central with vast troves of historical and laments that “So far, historians have Russian-Horde governance.… It is archaeological evidence that they are ignored these studies…” and “So clear that the very fact of the war with not taken seriously by any competent far, biblical scholars seem to have the “Mongolian” Horde in America experts in the relevant fields. ignored Fomenko’s conclusions ….” was carefully erased from the pages Of course, Fomenko has every The reason scholars ignore this of textbooks of American history. As right to pursue his bizarre hobbies research is simple: it is the same rea- well as the very fact of the existence and is free to make a public fool of son physicists would ignore research of the huge Moscow Tartary.” himself to his heart’s content. But concluding that the earth is flat. (Translated from G. V. Nosovskii the Notices of the AMS is not an ap- We assume that most Western and A. T. Fomenko, “Reconstruction propriate forum for such pseudosci- readers are not familiar with the “re- of world history (New chronology)”, entific tomfoolery. The danger is that search” of Fomenko and Nosovskii on Business Express, Moscow, 2001, publication here could lend an air of chronology, since most of the enor- p. 451 of 726 pp.) legitimacy to work which would never mous output of these authors is pub- In our opinion, the above quota- be published in a scholarly journal lished in Russian. So let us explain. tion gives an adequate impression refereed by competent experts in the Since the 1970s Fomenko has applied of the methods and conclusions of fields in question. “mathematical methods” to revise Fomenko and Nosovskii. We leave Could the Notices please confine the established historical chronology it to the readers to decide whether itself to articles with actual math- and historical events themselves. He an account of this research deserves ematical content? That way, we might comes to the remarkable conclusion publication in the Notices. reasonably hope to see more articles that almost all history that we learn that have been refereed by scholars in school has been intentionally fal- —Alex Eremenko whose knowledge and training qual- sified, forged by some international Purdue University ify them to accurately judge whether conspiracy. [email protected] or not an article is substantially cor- The following is our literal transla- rect and interesting. tion from Russian of a passage from —Victor Grinberg a book by Fomenko and Nosovskii, Independent scholar, —Claude LeBrun preserving punctuation and capital- Pittsburgh, PA Stony Brook University ization of the original: [email protected] [email protected] Section 2.7. Formation in 1776 of the United States of America on the (Received April 2, 2013) (Received March 20, 2013)

840 NOTICES OF THE AMS VOLUME 60, NUMBER 7