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posted by n1 on Friday October 24 2014, @08:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the beyond-reason dept.

There's no linked story but I thought this is worth sharing.

I was looking for some specific proof about locally compact spaces. And to my very surprise I found Pr∞fwiki. It's a site full of wonderful mathematical proofs. It's crystal clear, or at least aims to be so. Much clearer to read than wikipedia, which in my opinion tends to be full of various things except ones that can be directly verified, just by reading it and checking the proof. By looking at history I see that it's operating since roughly 2009. And it needs our help, of course. When I find some proof I will definitely add it there! Will you?

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  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday October 24 2014, @09:10AM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday October 24 2014, @09:10AM (#109510) Homepage
    No *proof* contains the line: "Thus, we are compelled to believe [that which was to be proved]"

    Yet it can be found on that site.
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Friday October 24 2014, @10:01AM

      by wonkey_monkey (279) on Friday October 24 2014, @10:01AM (#109513) Homepage

      No *proof* contains the line: "Thus, we are compelled to believe [that which was to be proved]" [1]

      Yet it can be found on that site.

      Which proves your conjecture [1] wrong, since https://proofwiki.org/wiki/0.999...%3D1/Proof_4 [proofwiki.org] is a proof and does contain the line "Thus, we are compelled to believe [etc]."

      A flowery-worded proof is still a proof.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @11:19AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @11:19AM (#109522)

        I'm a mathematician - that is most certainly *not* a proof. Then again that could be said about everything on that page. Proof is a very formal thing, by definition, the validity of all other mathematics depends on the rigor of proof.

        FatPhil (on restaurant wifi, so not logged in)

        • (Score: 2) by cosurgi on Friday October 24 2014, @01:52PM

          by cosurgi (272) on Friday October 24 2014, @01:52PM (#109565) Journal

          omg, you are right. That one is bad. I had a serious one somewhere in my textbook. Perhaps I should dig it up.

          --
          #
          #\ @ ? [adom.de] Colonize Mars [kozicki.pl]
          #
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @08:19PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @08:19PM (#109705)

          "validity of all other mathematics depends on the rigor of proof"

          Hah! Really?

          Prove that 1+1 always equals and only equals 2, lest all mathematics become invalid. Clearly it is a silly thing, just as your thought is.

          • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday October 27 2014, @08:52AM

            by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday October 27 2014, @08:52AM (#110452) Journal

            Prove that 1+1 always equals and only equals 2, lest all mathematics become invalid. Clearly it is a silly thing, just as your thought is.

            All you've shown is that you have no clue about mathematics.

            1+1=2 in the natural numbers. And yes, there you can prove it.

            1+1=0 in fields of characteristic 2. OK, you could argue that in those, 2=0.

            1+1=1 in boolean algebra. No, arguing 1=2 won't fly here.

            1+1=1*11 in regular expressions. Yes, regular expressions are also mathematics.

            --
            The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 2) by efitton on Friday October 24 2014, @01:34PM

        by efitton (1077) on Friday October 24 2014, @01:34PM (#109556) Homepage

        I don't actually mind the "compelled to believe," I mind the fact that it is inaccurate. It simply is not a proof and by including this I question the entire wiki.

        • (Score: 2) by efitton on Friday October 24 2014, @01:37PM

          by efitton (1077) on Friday October 24 2014, @01:37PM (#109558) Homepage

          Looks like it might only be included for the joke section, which does change the context quite a bit.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @02:01PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @02:01PM (#109575)

            I cannot find any indication that the page is in a joke section (or that such a joke section even exists).

          • (Score: 2) by jcross on Friday October 24 2014, @02:06PM

            by jcross (4009) on Friday October 24 2014, @02:06PM (#109578)

            It is indeed the first proof in the joke section, see: https://proofwiki.org/wiki/ProofWiki:Jokes [proofwiki.org]

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @03:22PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @03:22PM (#109594)

              That's no joke section, but a joke page. And while that page links to the "proof", the jokes meant as jokes are on the page itself; it's the title of one joke that links to the "proof" page.

              • (Score: 2) by efitton on Friday October 24 2014, @07:28PM

                by efitton (1077) on Friday October 24 2014, @07:28PM (#109694) Homepage

                But is the reason it exist because of the jokes page? If so, it changes the context of that page quite a bit.

  • (Score: 1) by Drake_Edgewater on Friday October 24 2014, @10:12AM

    by Drake_Edgewater (780) on Friday October 24 2014, @10:12AM (#109516) Journal

    Seems interesting. I have a number of assorted proofs intended to be added as appendices of articles, but I left them out. I was wondering if I could submit them to arXiv, but the site in TFS seems more appropriate. Thanks for sharing!

    I wonder if I can submit derivations of physical models as well.

  • (Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:13PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:13PM (#109534)

    They have jokes section:
    https://proofwiki.org/wiki/ProofWiki:Jokes [proofwiki.org]
    Already won me over.

    • (Score: 2) by sudo rm -rf on Friday October 24 2014, @12:38PM

      by sudo rm -rf (2357) on Friday October 24 2014, @12:38PM (#109537) Journal

      Saved my Friday

    • (Score: 2) by Alfred on Friday October 24 2014, @01:34PM

      by Alfred (4006) on Friday October 24 2014, @01:34PM (#109557) Journal
      This is good. There are some I haven't actually heard before.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @03:27PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @03:27PM (#109598)

      The first hexadecimal joke has room for improvement. Here's my suggestion:

      Q: What is the difference between dead people and deaf people?

      A: 2 people.

  • (Score: 2) by CRCulver on Friday October 24 2014, @02:05PM

    by CRCulver (4390) on Friday October 24 2014, @02:05PM (#109576) Homepage
    I work as a freelance translator and occasionally pick up jobs from the usual freelancer sites. It's fairly common to see job posts from cranks (either the slightly dotty or the severely schizophrenic) who think that they have made incredible new discoveries in maths or engineering, and they want to pay you to help them get the word out to the world. It always makes me think that admins on serious mathematics websites, or the many maths articles at Wikipedia, must spend a hell of a lot of their time dealing with cranks.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @05:48PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @05:48PM (#109665)

      I work as a freelance translator and occasionally pick up jobs from the usual freelancer sites. It's fairly common to see job posts from cranks (either the slightly dotty or the severely schizophrenic) who think that they have made incredible new discoveries in maths or engineering, and they want to pay you to help them get the word out to the world. It always makes me think that admins on serious mathematics websites, or the many maths articles at Wikipedia, must spend a hell of a lot of their time dealing with cranks.

      That's interesting. I had always thought that the cranks gravitated to astronomy. When I was a graduate student in the University of Illinois Astronomy Department, one of the professors had posted on the bulletin board outside his office a letter he had received from "an admirer" who likely fancied himself an as yet undiscovered successor to Einstein. To say the least, this letter was bizarre. I vaguely recall that the writer was claiming that he had some mathematical proof that would unify gravity, electromagnetism, strong, and weak forces and predict the big bang and "quasars" from first principles. He may have also thrown in a proof of the existence of God, for good measure. I can't tell you how many times I have had acquaintances want to tell me about their half-baked ideas on their "brand new theory of everything". I guess I had always thought that other STEM subjects were relatively immune to random quacks who wanted to engage "a colleague" on discussion of their exciting new theory. I don't know whether I should be relieved that astronomers are not alone in having to fend off random cranks or whether I should be disappointed.

      • (Score: 2) by TK on Friday October 24 2014, @06:06PM

        by TK (2760) on Friday October 24 2014, @06:06PM (#109667)

        It's a fairly common occurrence in thermodynamics as well. Someone working in their garage (on paper, or by tinkering) thinks they've invented a perpetual motion machine using magnets, or chemistry, or something else that appears to break the 2nd law if you don't understand the physics.

        --
        The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday October 24 2014, @06:59PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday October 24 2014, @06:59PM (#109683) Journal

        I think the popularity of fields tends to run in waves. There was a time when trisecting an angle was the most common incorrect proof. (I came up with one that I *think* would work, though I haven't checked it since I understood proofs. Unfortunately, it required an infinite number of steps.)

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @08:23PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @08:23PM (#109707)

        There is nothing wrong with claiming to have a theory, even one that is of grand unification, just so long as they give it up for analysis. Imagine what the world would be like if, whenever anyone came up with a new theory or proof they were dismissed as being a crank without even looking at their work.