Alexander Abian

Hangs out in the sci.* hierarchy, as in sci.physics . "NASA's exclusive goal, ambition and aim must be the reorbiting Venus into Earth's orbit by the year 2004. Otherwise NASA will lose its viability. That wee should not permit ! never ! never !" Is convinced that altering Earth's orbit and tilt is the only way to cure humanity of its evil deviance; puts subject lines in ALL CAPS. In Real Life tm, is a retired tenured math professor at a Iowa State U. A miniFAQ of Abian, critiqued MST3K style, is available. Has been interviewed by the BBC, and broadcast...

Aiee. How Soon They Forget (tm). The "scientist" in question was/is none other than Alexander Abian. Yes, he may have moved on to "reorbiting Venus to make it a born-again Earth", but he began on a smaller scale, closer to home.

...you forgot to mention that you can also find Dr. Abian's work in the Weekly World News from time to time. Yes, the bastion of supermarket journalism has indeed employed our own Dr. Abian for what nefarious purposes I can not remember. But ooh, it was a doozy!

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The above was shamelessly lifted from the net.legends FAQ. Unfortunately Dr Abian has died. The entry doesn't talk about all the good stuff he has done with set theory. Perhaps proof that you can be a kook in one field and respected in another.

In the interests of content I'm also including the following extracted from a letter I wrote to Rimma Abian with regards to her father. (Original spelling retained)

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When I first came to usenet I read the pyhsics newsgroups because that was what I was interested in. Thats where I first encounted your father, a person I found faciniting. In his writing I found an intelegent person advocating what was a very non-mainstreem view.

I watched him talk and interact balencing the points he made and the points that others made. It was my first experence of usenet, and one that remains with me to this day. Threw that period I matured and learned much, I owe alot to Usenet and by extention alot to your father. I am who I am because of your father, I am a better person because of your father. I may call him a kook but he was a good person and a person who made the world a better place.

to commemorate the anniversary of his death..

From: abian@iastate.edu (Alexander Abian)
Newsgroups: sci.math
Subject: THE ABIAN LIST
Date: 12 Jan 95 23:19:24 GMT
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
NNTP-Posting-Host: pv3449.vincent.iastate.edu

                              
                      THE ABIAN LIST


        1.  Time has inertia.,  Equivalence of Time and Mass.
    
        2.  Gravity is a reaction to expansion.
            Space tends to lump together masses in a reservation camp in
            an attempt to (even partially) preserve the status quo of
            its primordial primarily almost matter-free neutrality.

        3.  Photon propulsion (radiation or emission) which is a most
            fundamental concept of the modern Physics is spaces's attempt
            to dilute (whenever possible) the concentrated presence of
            the intruding matter again in order to preserve the status
            quo of its almost matter-free neutrality.
      
            (2 and 3 may sound contradictory - but they are not - all
             depends on the circumstances).

        4.  A Black holes (if it exists) is a concentration (via
            refraction) of Gravity rays in the focal points of 
            Cosmic lenses (formed by a suitable configuration of cosmic 
            bodies) akin to the concentration of light rays
            in the focal points of optic lenses. Also akin to formation
            of Lasers.

        5.  Reorbiting Venus  into an Earth-like orbit to create a
            Born again Earth. Reigniting Jupiter into a born again Sun.     
 
        6.  Repulsion of like electric charges is Space's reaction to
            the tendency of maintaining  its electric neutrality.       

        7.  Repulsion of like magnetic poles is  Space's reaction to
            reduce the number of active magnetic poles as Space's 
            attempt and tendency of maintaining its magnetic neutrality.

        8.  Nuclear chain reactions, atomic and hydrogen bomb explosion,
            is  a reaction to a provocation of violently  unstable matter.

        9.  Sulfuric acid's evaporating a drop of water is  an act of
            evaporating  the intruding enemy and the tendency of maintaining
            the  status quo of its acidity concentration.

       10.  Altering and reshuffling our entire 8 billion year old decaying
            Solar System (in fact, the entire Cosmos) and rejecting the 
            slavish indoctrination of the  "Majestic Celestial Harmony) 
            which in reality is putrid and corrupt. In particular,
            altering  Earth's orbit and tilt in order to stop the natural
            disasters and calamities and epidemics of deadly diseases such
            as plagues, cancer and various immune deficiency syndromes.

-- 
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TIME-SPACE HAS INERTIA. EQUIVALENCE OF TIME-SPACE AND MASS1/T+1/log M =1(ABIAN)
  ALTER EARTH'S ORBIT AND TILT - STOP EPIDEMICS OF CANCER, CHOLERA, AIDS, ETC. 
   VENUS MUST BE GIVEN A NEAR EARTH-LIKE ORBIT TO BECOME A BORN AGAIN EARTH

taken from http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/madsci/abian

An Alexander Abian quote:

I am raising the petulant finger of defiance to the solar organization for the first time in 5 billion years.

Taken from a "People", June 24, 1991, article about his idea of nuking the moon. The goal of which, according to Abian, was to straighten the angle of earth's rotation and thus stabilize the climate, and to basically make things better. Earthquakes did not factor into his equations I suppose.

In addition to being a complete and utter net.kook on sci.math, Alexander Abian would also provide useful information on that same newsfroup! His examples on how replacing some axioms of very simple theories of sets (limited versions of set theory) were somewhat simplistic, but often interesting. He also helped many a poster with understanding various fixed point properties; his still-extant homepage gives a "universal" fixed point theorem (he calls it "most fundamental") that doesn't require a topology or ordering on the set.¹

Truly an interesting person!

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1. He uses ordinals to analyse the structure of iteration of a map on a set; you might consider the order (and induced topology) "cheating", in that they impose structure on the set. However, this structure is natural.