{"id":1240,"date":"2015-12-13T20:08:12","date_gmt":"2015-12-14T04:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/?p=1240"},"modified":"2015-12-13T20:46:33","modified_gmt":"2015-12-14T04:46:33","slug":"36-methods-of-proof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/13\/36-methods-of-proof\/","title":{"rendered":"36 Methods of Proof"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
36 Methods of Proof<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nProof by obviousness<\/td>\n“The proof is so clear that it need not be mentioned.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nProof by general agreement<\/td>\n“All in favor?…”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nProof by imagination<\/td>\n“Well, we’ll pretend it’s true…”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nProof by convenience<\/td>\n“It would be very nice if it were true, so…”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nProof by necessity<\/td>\n“It had better be true, or the entire structure of mathematics would crumble to the ground.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6<\/td>\nProof by plausibility<\/td>\n“It sounds good so it must be true.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7<\/td>\nProof by intimidation<\/td>\n“Don’t be stupid; of course it’s true.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8<\/td>\nProof by lack of sufficient time<\/td>\n“Because of the time constraint, I’ll leave the proof to you.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9<\/td>\nProof by postponement<\/td>\n“The proof for this is long and arduous, so it is given in the appendix.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
10<\/td>\nProof by accident<\/td>\n“Hey, what have we here?!”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
11<\/td>\nProof by insignificance<\/td>\n“Who really cares, anyway?”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
12<\/td>\nProof by mumbo-jumbo<\/td>\n\u00a0\"mumbo\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
13<\/td>\nProof by profanity<\/td>\n(example omitted)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
14<\/td>\nProof by definition<\/td>\n“We define it to be true.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
15<\/td>\nProof by tautology<\/td>\nIt’s true because it’s true.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
16<\/td>\nProof by plagiarism<\/td>\n“As we see on page\u00a0289,…”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
17<\/td>\nProof by lost reference<\/td>\n“I know I saw it\u00a0somewhere…”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
18<\/td>\nProof by calculus<\/td>\n“This proof requires<\/p>\n
calculus, so we’ll skip it.”<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
19<\/td>\nProof by terror<\/td>\nWhen intimidation fails…<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
20<\/td>\nProof by lack of interest<\/td>\n“Does anyone really\u00a0want to see this?”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
21<\/td>\nProof by illegibility<\/td>\n\u00a0\"illeg\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
22<\/td>\nProof by logic<\/td>\n“If it is on the\u00a0problem sheet, then it must be true!”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
23<\/td>\nProof by majority rule<\/td>\n“Only to be used if\u00a0general agreement is impossible.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
24<\/td>\nProof by clever variable choice<\/td>\n“Let A be the number\u00a0such that this proof works…”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
25<\/td>\nProof by tessellation<\/td>\n“This proof works the\u00a0same as the last.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
26<\/td>\nProof by divine word<\/td>\n“…And the Lord said,\u00a0‘Let it be true,’ and it was true.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
27<\/td>\nProof by stubbornness<\/td>\n“I don’t care what you\u00a0say-it is true!”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
28<\/td>\nProof by simplification<\/td>\n“This proof reduces to\u00a0the statement 1+1=2.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
29<\/td>\nProof by hasty generalization<\/td>\n“Well, it works for\u00a017, so it works for all real numbers.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
30<\/td>\nProof by deception<\/td>\n“Now everyone turn\u00a0their backs…”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
31<\/td>\nProof by supplication<\/td>\n“Oh please, let it be\u00a0true.”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
32<\/td>\nProof by poor analogy<\/td>\n“Well, it’s just\u00a0like…”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
33<\/td>\nProof by avoidance<\/td>\nLimit of proof by\u00a0postponement as it approaches infinity<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
34<\/td>\nProof by design<\/td>\nIf it’s not true in today’s\u00a0math, invent a new system in which it is.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
35<\/td>\nProof by authority<\/td>\n“Well, Ruth Kraus says\u00a0it’s true, so it must be!”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
36<\/td>\nProof by intuition<\/td>\n“I just have this gut\u00a0feeling…”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

36 Methods of Proof 1 Proof by obviousness “The proof is so clear that it need not be mentioned.” 2 Proof by general agreement “All in favor?…” 3 Proof by imagination “Well, we’ll pretend it’s true…” 4 Proof by convenience “It would be very nice if it were true, so…” 5 Proof by necessity “It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog","8":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/crazy-professor.jpg?fit=225%2C225&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p71YpQ-k0","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1240"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1469,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240\/revisions\/1469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnnylogic.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}