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I feel you do Leslie Lamport a disservice here. I read the SciAm article and the full "How to Write a 21st Century Proof" and did not get any sense of denigrati
by stevesimmons 8y ago
I feel you do Leslie Lamport a disservice here. I read the SciAm article and the full "How to Write a 21st Century Proof" and did not get any sense of denigrating people or being adversarial. Sure, he is concerned about clarity and correctness, but that is the exact point of mathematical proofs.
So everyone else, please skim the SciAm article and then take 15 minutes to enjoy reading the paper [1] in Lamport's own words.
[1] https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/pubs/proof.pdf https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/pubs/proof.pdf
- _Microft 8y agoIt's not clarity or correctness but how it is said. See page 2 of the paper (page 5 of the PDF) for example. That is where he is talking about people being stuck in the 17th century and "how sloppy their proofs are" [1]. I am not arguing that this might not be true! - I argue that it is not helpful to approach introducing and advertising the idea in this way. I'm not a mathematician but I'd understand if someone reacted with defiance to wording like this. [1] https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/pubs/proof.pdf https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/pubs/proof.pdf, p.2 (PDF page 5)