Am 11.12.2010 14:48, schrieb Orchid XP v8:
> On 11/12/2010 12:14 PM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>
>> By contrast, this paper seems to assert that mathematics is about
>> constructing abstractions and building theories out of them as a matter
>> of creativity. Obviously I've never seen any cutting-edge mathematics
>> (and I never will), but I've always thought of mathematics looking at
>> interesting systems and discovering their properties, out of simple
>> human curiosity. Certainly that's why *I* explore mathematics; it's the
>> desire to know everything about everything.
>
> Thinking about it... No, I'm not very good at math. I never bother
> proving things.
>
> According to the paper, the proof is far more important than the result
> (at least as far as mathematicians are concerned). I always considered
> the proof to be the most boring part.

You don't need unshakable solid proof for conjectures, so maybe you 
should stick to those. In my eyes that's mathematical enough.

I guess more often than not, proving a good conjecture boils down to the 
mere applying of rules again. Sure, there are famous conjectures out 
there that seem to defy any attempt to prove them, but you don't hear 
about the conjectures that are easy to prove. And after all, /every/ 
proof starts off as a conjecture.

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