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"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains is often more improbable than your having made a mistake in one of your impossibility proofs." - The
by khafra 17y ago
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains is often more improbable than your having made a mistake in one of your impossibility proofs." - The Black Belt Bayesian
- lotharbot 17y agoA few years back, a new proof came out regarding an algorithm to find large primes. There was a slow, perfect variant and a faster, statistical variant with a small chance of error (like 1 in 10^20.) "Of course, this means to be really sure you have to use the slower algorithm or go through a rigorous proof. On the other hand, the probability that you'd mess up a proof is much higher than that." It was a fantastic illustration of the principle.