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Talk:Elementary proof (view source)
Revision as of 20:07, January 30, 2009
, 20:07, January 30, 2009→Definition of Elementary proof: I don't think that anyone uses the term "elementary proof" as it is defined here
:AndyJM, I really don't understand what your are finding so baffling about the concept of elementary proofs. The line you removed was an important statement, and as you can see, Andy (the owner) reinstated it with some clearer wording. If you do not have experience with elementary proofs, then please do not remove content from the articles -- you've been banned for such actions before. -[[User:Foxtrot|Foxtrot]] 22:00, 18 January 2009 (EST)
:AndyJM, I really don't understand what your are finding so baffling about the concept of elementary proofs. The line you removed was an important statement, and as you can see, Andy (the owner) reinstated it with some clearer wording. If you do not have experience with elementary proofs, then please do not remove content from the articles -- you've been banned for such actions before. -[[User:Foxtrot|Foxtrot]] 22:00, 18 January 2009 (EST)
:: Hi Foxtrot. I thought that I had clearly laid out what I find so baffling about one particular statement in this article. Did you read my comment? While I am not delighted with the addition that Schlafly made it is a definite improvement over what had been there. The vast majority (perhaps all) all the proofs that I have published could be classified as elementary according to the first definition, i.e. not using complex analysis. However I have no idea whether or not they would elementary according to the second definition. This suggests to me that the second definition could be a bit suspect or 'loose', so to speak. I am not out to cause trouble here, and despite your beliefs to the contrary I have not made any edits for ideological reasons. In fact to my mind mathematics is refreshingly free of ideology. Dia dhuit (to which the polite response is 'Dia is muire dhuit'). [[User:AndyJM|AndyJM]] 07:22, 19 January 2009 (EST)
:: Hi Foxtrot. I thought that I had clearly laid out what I find so baffling about one particular statement in this article. Did you read my comment? While I am not delighted with the addition that Schlafly made it is a definite improvement over what had been there. The vast majority (perhaps all) all the proofs that I have published could be classified as elementary according to the first definition, i.e. not using complex analysis. However I have no idea whether or not they would elementary according to the second definition. This suggests to me that the second definition could be a bit suspect or 'loose', so to speak. I am not out to cause trouble here, and despite your beliefs to the contrary I have not made any edits for ideological reasons. In fact to my mind mathematics is refreshingly free of ideology. Dia dhuit (to which the polite response is 'Dia is muire dhuit'). [[User:AndyJM|AndyJM]] 07:22, 19 January 2009 (EST)
I don't think that anyone uses the term "elementary proof" as it is defined here. Here is more typical usage:
:Keep in mind that the word ‘elementary’ is being used in many dif-ferent ways in this discussion. In informal mathematical usage, ‘elemen-tary’ is often used to mean ‘simple’ or ‘easy to understand’. In the Sel-berg/Nathanson sense it is used to mean ‘avoiding the use of infinitary (or analytic) methods’. The fact that Selberg’s proof of Dirichlet’s theorem is harder to understand than the standard analytic one shows that these two senses can be at odds! I have already noted that the use of the word ‘elementary’ in the phrase ‘elementary arithmetic’ is due to the fact that the axiom system is closely related to the class of ‘elementary functions’ in the sense of Kalmar. To complicate matters even further, among logicians the word ‘elementary’ is often used to mean ‘first-order’. [http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/avigad/Papers/elementary.pdf]
As you can see, none of this matches what is in the article. I suggest that the article be deleted. [[User:RSchlafly|RSchlafly]] 15:07, 30 January 2009 (EST)