From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/6632 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: peasthope@shaw.ca Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: Explanations Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:09:36 -0800 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: peasthope@shaw.ca NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1303477243 11732 80.91.229.12 (22 Apr 2011 13:00:43 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:00:43 +0000 (UTC) Cc: peasthope@shaw.ca To: categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: majordomo@mlist.mta.ca Fri Apr 22 15:00:36 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from smtpx.mta.ca ([138.73.1.4]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1QDFyN-0000pA-8O for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Fri, 22 Apr 2011 15:00:35 +0200 Original-Received: from mlist.mta.ca ([138.73.1.63]:39759) by smtpx.mta.ca with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QDFyJ-00072N-SH; Fri, 22 Apr 2011 10:00:31 -0300 Original-Received: from majordomo by mlist.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QDFyF-0000tl-Ue for categories-list@mlist.mta.ca; Fri, 22 Apr 2011 10:00:28 -0300 in-reply-to: Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:6632 Archived-At: Fred & all, > My goodness! I'd turn that question around: is there any proof (apart=20 > from an "indirect" proof, or "proof by contradiction") that one would=20 > *not* "consider as being explanatory in this sense?" Speaking as a novice: yes, certainly. Isn't it a question of degree? So= me=20 proofs explain beautifully while others are clear as mud; most are =20 between. Ideally a proof shouldn't depend upon natural language but=20 most do. Striking sometimes how changing a few words of a sentence=20 can make a concept obvious rather than nebulous. For example, I've proven some of the power laws for map objects. There=20 should be a way to reduce the definition of a map object and the power=20 laws to analogues in arithmetic. Still eludes me. My proofs have yet to= =20 help. So my understanding is incomplete and my power law proofs are=20 poor. Best regards, ... Peter E. --=20 Telephone 1 360 450 2132. bcc: peasthope at shaw.ca Shop pages http://carnot.yi.org/ accessible as long as the old drives sur= vive. Personal pages http://members.shaw.ca/peasthope/ . [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]