Proofs and Refutations
#644 of 2,654 all-time
Proofs and Refutations
Imre Lakatos
10 people recommended it in 8 threads, 2010–2023.
What people on Hacker News said
Proofs and Refutations, a posthumous work by Imre Lakatos, it defied much of my established view on how Mathematics works.
_P&R_ provides a working example of how this might go, and how a diligent and magnanimous mind might approach the process. I think it's a really fun and engaging book, too.
As an adult, Imre Lakatos' Proofs and Refutations gave me a much richer understanding of definitions in mathematics -- what job they're meant to do, and when it makes sense to change your definitions instead of adding premises to your theorems.
I would go with "Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical" by Lakatos, its a dialog-form history of defining Euler's formula and it shows the human side of mathematics as a science.
"Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery" by Imre Lakatos made me look at math like i never did before it
The Lakatos book is a great introduction to mathematical thinking in that it shows the importance of definitions - how even simple definitions are malleable and can be changed to properly handle special cases.
Where it comes up
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