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From reading math research papers, it is not that uncommon to start with what you are trying to prove and proceed with a series of reverisible operations. This
by gizmo686 12y ago
From reading math research papers, it is not that uncommon to start with what you are trying to prove and proceed with a series of reverisible operations. This is gennerally done to as a first step to convert the proposistion into something that fits more naturally into the proof. This also tends to be done in prose.
It saddens me that so little of what goes in in math papers makes it into textbooks, or math students that do not study original papers themselves.
- nmrm2 12y agoI don't see any pressing need to freshman to write their very first non-euclidean proofs in the same style as professional mathematicians. Obviously, it's a matter of style. I still maintain few mathematicians would write canonical discrete math style induction proofs in reverse order. But then, a mathematician would totally not write out induction proofs the same way we teach in freshman discrete math courses. So in some sense the style question is completely irrelevant, and what matters is that the student's answer demonstrates unambiguously an understaning of the concept.