News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on How Math’s Most Famous Proof Nearly Broke (2015). Parent comment

Re:How Math’s Most Famous Proof Nearly Broke (2015) by Retra on Friday December 21, 2018 @01:43PM (#18735487)
You can make any proof as short as you want. Length of proof means almost nothing; it is a function of the language you choose to use.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How Math’s Most Famous Proof Nearly Broke (2015) by nyc111 on Friday December 21, 2018 @02:02PM (#18735629)
> You can make any proof as short as you want.

If so why did Wiley choose to write a 200 page proof while he could have stated it in one sentence?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How Math’s Most Famous Proof Nearly Broke (2015) by Retra on Wednesday January 02, 2019 @02:20PM (#18809144)
Because he was writing for a specific class of predetermined parsers, rather than an arbitrary one which was optimized for his proof.
[ Parent | on HN ]