Quotes About Proof

Our anxiety systems are very practical. They assume that anything you run away from is dangerous. The proof of that is, of course, the fact you ran away.

In 1931, Kurt Godel proved in his famous second incompleteness theorem that there could be no finitary proof of the consistency of arithmetic. He had killed Hilbert's program with a single stroke. So should you be worried that all of mathematics might collapse tomorrow afternoon? For what it's worth, I'm not. I do believe in infinite sets, and I find the proofs of consistency that use infinite sets to be convincing enough to let me sleep at night.

0.33333. . . . .= 1/3. Multiply both sides by 3 and you'll see 0.99999. . . .= 3/3= 1.

Math is a science of not being wrong about things,

Math is a science of not being wrong about things, its techniques and habits hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument.

when you're working hard on a theorem you should try to prove it by day and disprove it by night.

That's man's way. To prove something. Day in, day out he must prove he is a man. Poor Fool.

To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate. We must create the pedagogy of the paredón [execution wall].

The primary concern of mathematics is number, and this means the positive integers…. Mathematics belongs to man, not God. We are not interested in properties of the positive integers that have no descriptive meaning for finite man. When a man proves a positive integer exists, he should show how to find it. If God has mathematics of his own that needs to be done, let him do it himself.

I only believe those things which can be proved; but I know full well that proofs are relative and can, and are in fact, continually superseded and cancelled out by other proved facts; and therefore I believe that doubt should be the mental approach of all who aspire to get ever closer to the truth, or at least to that much of truth that it is possible to establish. . .

Proof of knowledge of the right to refuse consent, Justice Stewart wrote, is not "a necessary prerequisite to demonstrating a 'voluntary' consent."6

There is no proof of creativity without action.

Q.E.D. [Quod erat demonstrandum: Which was to be proved.]

What has been affirmed without proof can also be denied without proof.

Each act of obedience by the Christian is a modest proof, unequivocal for all its imperfection, of the reality of what he attests."1

The bawling of babies, always in a way Inappropriate - why should the love and innocent Greet existence with wails? - is proof that not all Is well. Dreams and deliveries never quite mesh.

The only philosophy worth pursuing is the one that poses questions without answers. Anything less is hubris. But this can never be proved – by definition.

Now my sole function in this world is to serve as receptacle for the proof that I am inconsequential; every experience I accrete is only another stroke of an eraser.

You can't rely on your own perception when it comes to anything. You can always be proved wrong.

Every document, apparently ancient, coming from the proper repository or custody, and bearing on its face no evident marks of forger, the law presumes to be genuine, and devolves on the opposing party the burden of proving it to be otherwise.

You've got people who are looking at DNA evidence and other evidence like that and they're ignoring it.

Proof seduces them. One of the greatest pleasures of the human race is thinking.

When you start following Jesus, you begin to prove you believe what he says.

I'll show you Obama's birth certificate when you show me Sarah Palin's high school diploma.