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A comment on Feynman on Fermat's Last Theorem (2016). Parent comment

Re:Feynman on Fermat's Last Theorem (2016) by todd8 on Sunday August 06, 2017 @11:56AM (#14941787)
Interesting, and startling to me when I first learned of it, is the probabilistic method [1], now not infrequently used in combinatorics to prove the existence of a solution to some question without constructing it. One proves that the probability of existence is strictly greater than zero.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Probabilistic-Method-Discrete-Mathema...

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Re:Feynman on Fermat's Last Theorem (2016) by jordigh on Sunday August 06, 2017 @12:00PM (#14941808)
Yeah, that's really different, though. It's essentially a way to simplify counting. But the "converse" of the probabilistic method doesn't work: zero probability doesn't mean inexistence in an infinite set.
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