Submission + - Mathematics, Mathematica and Certainty (wolfram.com)
itsybitsy writes: http://blog.wolfram.com/2007/12/mathematics_mathematica_and_ce.html
Mathematics likes to think of itself as a very certainty-based business. If you've "proved something mathematically", then it's supposed to just be true. No ifs or buts. Complete certainty.
But in practice that's not quite how it works — at least the way mathematics has traditionally been done. Because in reality a mathematical proof of the kind people publish in papers is something much more social. It's a vehicle for convincing other humans — one's fellow mathematicians — that something is true.
But in practice that's not quite how it works — at least the way mathematics has traditionally been done. Because in reality a mathematical proof of the kind people publish in papers is something much more social. It's a vehicle for convincing other humans — one's fellow mathematicians — that something is true.
