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This assumes that the purpose of math is to prove things, whereas another worthy goal for me at least is enabling humans to truly understand why things are true, and not just what things are true.


No disrespect, but your purpose for math is entirely irrelevant unless you speak for the majority of research mathematicians.


No disrespect, but dkural's idea of what mathematics is about is no more irrelevant than sillysaurus2's or yours, and dkural's view is quite well represented among research mathematicians, first-rate ones included. For a famous example, see William Thurston's "On proof and progress in mathematics" at http://arxiv.org/pdf/math/9404236v1.pdf .


I have a mathematics degree from Harvard, though I haven't taken a poll of research mathematicians. I do think algorithmic theorem proving is a great field of inquiry!




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