Quote of the Day
by Joran Elias
4 February 2009
For your edification:
There is strictly speaking no such thing as mathematical proof; we can, in the last analysis, do nothing but point…proofs are what Littlewood and I call gas, rhetorical flourishes designed to affect psychology, pictures on the board in the lecture, devices to stimulate the imagination of pupils. – G.H. Hardy (1928)
Feb 4, 02:10 AM
I’ve often thought that. You can say it’s a proof, and I can say it’s a proof, but that doesn’t make it any different than a non-proof that we both mistakenly think is a proof.