As one who has wasted my time writing to Marilyn in the past (and
who even occupies a minor position on the "Marilyn is Wrong"
website), allow me to suggest that phys-l'ers not waste their time
trying to educate her or to extract retractions.
Some years ago, after posting to Phys-L a confession
about the enjoyment I derived from my weekly date with Marilyn's
Parade Magazine column, a friend wrote to me with some
disillusioning information about Ms. Vos Savant.
Since then, I have come to see for myself that her column is
intended purely for entertainment and self aggrandizement. It
does not in any way reflect academic values with regard to
intellectual integrity. Anyone who anticipates otherwise while
taking pen in hand will surely be disillusioned.
Marilyn publishes letters from academics only when she is right
and they are wrong; it helps perpetuate the Marilyn myth. I no
longer waste my time writing to her.
Everyone should be aware that Marilyn wrote a book in 1993 called
"The World's Most Famous Math Problem." It is ostensibly about
Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. By all accounts (see, for
example, the reviews of the book at amazon.com) it was and is a
laughably inept, hurriedly written, cynical attempt to cash in on
the public attention that accompanied the publication of Wile's
solution. Moreover, unrestrained by the humility that generally
characterizes the utterances of those who know nothing about their
subject, Marilyn parades both her ignorance and her arrogance by
claiming incorrectly to have found a fatal flaw in Wiles'
solution--not, BTW, the genuine flaw that was soon discovered and
corrected.
My advice: Read her column for your amusement and shrug it off.