 fortune index all fortunes
| | #3466 | | HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 5
proof by accumulated evidence:
Long and diligent search has not revealed a counterexample.
proof by cosmology:
The negation of the proposition is unimaginable or
meaningless. Popular for proofs of the existence of God.
proof by mutual reference:
In reference A, Theorem 5 is said to follow from Theorem 3 in
reference B, which is shown to follow from Corollary 6.2 in
reference C, which is an easy consequence of Theorem 5 in
reference A.
proof by metaproof:
A method is given to construct the desired proof. The
correctness of the method is proved by any of these
techniques.
| | | #3467 | | HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 6
proof by picture:
A more convincing form of proof by example. Combines well
with proof by omission.
proof by vehement assertion:
It is useful to have some kind of authority relation to the
audience.
proof by ghost reference:
Nothing even remotely resembling the cited theorem appears in
the reference given.
| | | #3468 | | HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 7
proof by forward reference:
Reference is usually to a forthcoming paper of the author,
which is often not as forthcoming as at first.
proof by semantic shift:
Some of the standard but inconvenient definitions are changed
for the statement of the result.
proof by appeal to intuition:
Cloud-shaped drawings frequently help here.
| | | #3469 | | [May one] doubt whether, in cheese and timber, worms are generated,
or, if beetles and wasps, in cow-dung, or if butterflies, locusts,
shellfish, snails, eels, and such life be procreated of putrefied
matter, which is to receive the form of that creature to which it
is by formative power disposed[?] To question this is to question
reason, sense, and experience. If he doubts this, let him go to
Egypt, and there he will find the fields swarming with mice begot
of the mud of the Nylus, to the great calamity of the inhabitants.
A seventeenth century opinion quoted by L. L. Woodruff,
in *The Evolution of Earth and Man*, 1929
| | | #3470 | | Seen on a button at an SF Convention:
Veteran of the Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force. 1990-1951.
| | | #3471 | | "If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward,
then we are a sorry lot indeed."
-- Albert Einstein
| | | #3472 | | "What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is
the exact opposite."
-- Bertrand Russell, _Sceptical_Essays_, 1928
| | | #3473 | | "Were there no women, men might live like gods."
-- Thomas Dekker
| | | #3474 | | "Intelligence without character is a dangerous thing."
-- G. Steinem
| | | #3475 | | "It says he made us all to be just like him. So if we're dumb, then god is
dumb, and maybe even a little ugly on the side."
-- Frank Zappa
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