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Mathematical proofs in the computer age

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2016

Keith Devlin
Keith Devlin*
Affiliation:
PO Box 3517, Moraga, California 94575-3517, USA
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Extract

As recently as ten years ago, professional mathematicians did most of their work at a desk, using paper and pencil. Today’s mathematician still sits at a desk, but facing a cathode-ray screen. The paper and pencil are still there, but a lot of the mathematician’s activities now involve use of the computer. In particular, powerful computer packages like Mathematica and Maple advertise themselves as systems for ‘doing mathematics on a computer’. This rapid transformation has changed the nature of doing mathematics in a fundamental way. The computer does not simply ‘assist’ the mathematician in doing business as usual; rather, it changes the nature of what is done. In particular, the logical structure of mathematical reasoning carried out with the aid of an interactive computer system is different from the structure of the more traditional form of mathematical reasoning. This article is a logician’s view of the ‘new maths’ of the computer age.

Type
Articles
Information
The Mathematical Gazette , Volume 80 , Issue 487 , March 1996 , pp. 149 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © The Mathematical Association 1996

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References

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