All entries for Thursday 27 October 2005

Proof By Triviality

A Mathematicians best (only?) friend.
A subset of proof by intimidation.

To prove a statement one must use a myriad of convincing mathematical arguments to reduce said statement to one of logical equivalence, but so stunningly obvious that one may write the rather poetic line:

Trivial.

Notes:

1. Not to be used in conjunction with Analysis. Analysts will require some sort of epsilon argument, these are never trivial.
2. Proof by triviality doesn't make for elegant proofs, but they are bloody quick to write.
3. Often confused for an actual proof.

: 27 Oct 2005 21:52 |  Tags: Mathematics |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem