The Revisionist FAQ

Here are a few excerpts from the infamous "Revisionist History of Math 
FAQ", which gave outrageous, yet difficult to disprove, answers to 
questions about the traditional history of math.

  (1) How did the group theorist Evariste Galois die?

  Contrary to popular myth, Galois was not killed in a duel.  He 
  committed suicide.  "The duel" was a fabrication originating in 
  Galois's "farewell, cruel world" letter, and subsequently propogated 
  by his friends and associates in radical politics.

  (2) Did Pierre de Fermat actually write his "Last Theorem" in the
      margin of a book.

  No.  The generalization of the equation x^n + y^n = z^n for ALL
  integers n never occurred to Fermat Sr, or, if it did, he never
  imagined he could settle it.  The famous assertion for all
  exponents was inserted into the edition of Bachet's Diophantus
  by Pierre's son, Samuel, who edited his father's papers for
  publication after his death.
 
  (3) How was Archimedes' "The Method" recovered after being lost
      for over a thousand years?

  It wasn't.  The "palimpset" supposedly found by J.L. Heiberg in 1906
  in Istanbul is a forgery, produced by the classical scholar Heiberg 
  who had a life-long obsession with Archimedes.

I hasten to add that the above "answers" are irresponsible distortions
of the historical tradition, and at least two of them are almost
certainly false.

Incidentally, the palimpset of item (3) was recently sold at auction
to an anonymous bidder for about two million dollars.  This auction
was carried out over the objections of the Greek orthodoc Church,
which claims ownership of the relic, since it apparently was removed
from their possession without permission early in this century by
a person or persons unknown.  Since then the string of ownership has 
been somewhat murky, but it has never been available for scrutiny by
scholars.  The new owner (whoever he is) has agreed to let the document
be examined, which should lay to rest (one way or the other) any doubts
as to its authenticity.  The only news I've heard so far is the
remnants of the Archimedian text underneath the later prayer text
is nearly unreadable to the naked eye, and must be enhanced by
computer in order to make it out.  This naturally implies that either
Heiberg, who made his translation based on a brief visual examination,
had superhuman eyesight, or else the document has deteriorated more
in the last hundred years than it did in the preceding thousand years.

By the way, Fred Rickey had the opportunity to look at the document
briefly before it was auctioned, and says it was "exceptionally 
difficult to read".  He could see where diagrams were, but could 
barely make them out.  He comments that "What I did not previously
realize is that Heiberg could not make them out either and so the 
diagrams in the printed versions of the Method are by Heiberg".

Hmmm... so maybe the revisionist FAQ was not so outlandish after all.