"The history of mathematics is full of philosophically and ethically troubling reports about bad proofs of theorems. For example, the states that every polynomial of degree n with complex coefficients has exactly n complex roots. D'Alembert published a proof in 1746, and the theorem became known as "D'Alembert's theorem," but the proof was wrong. Gauss published his first proof... in 1799, but this, too, had gaps. Gauss's subsequent proofs, in 1816 and 1849, were okay. It seems to have been difficult to determine if a proof... was correct. Why?"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mathematical_proof
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Mathematical proof
43 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Mathematical proof →
Related Quotes
"The physicists didn't want to be bothered with the idea that maybe quantum theory is only provisional. A horn of plen…"
"Now Gödel's proof, Russell's original paradox, all these things, all stem from one common root which is inherent in a…"
"In the summer of 1914 I attended Frege's course, Logik in der Mathematik. Here he examined critically some of the cus…"
"On the subject of demonstrations, it is to be remarked that the Hindu mathematicians proved propositions both algebra…"
"Pythagoras did not possess a proof of the theorem which bears his name... he was temperamentally uninterested in proo…"
"Proof is the idol before whom the pure mathematician tortures himself."
"Another roof, another proof."
"Paul Erdős, although an atheist, spoke of an imaginary book, in which God has written down all the most beautiful mat…"
"It really is worth the trouble to invent a new symbol if we can thus remove not a few logical difficulties and ensure…"
"The great masters of modern analysis are Lagrange, Laplace, and Gauss, who were contemporaries. It is interesting to …"