![]() There’ve been a few million mathematical proofs published over the past century or so. It’s a vehicle for convincing other humans-one’s fellow mathematicians-that something is true. ![]() Because in reality a mathematical proof of the kind people publish in papers is something much more social. Complete certainty.īut in practice that’s not quite how it works-at least the way mathematics has traditionally been done. If you’ve “proved something mathematically”, then it’s supposed to just be true. Mathematics likes to think of itself as a very certainty-based business. It turned out to be a pretty interesting conversation, so I thought I’d write here about a few things that came up. Not a lot gets written in the general press about foundational issues in mathematics, but this afternoon I found myself talking to a journalist about the subject of certainty in mathematics. (This post was originally published on the Wolfram Blog.)
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