Science is a human activity (was: Python syntax in Lisp and Scheme)

[David C. Ullrich]

On Tue, 14 Oct 2003 14:38:42 -0400, "Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz"
<spamtrap at library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote:

>In <odbmovck6v38onq2ufum0obkf9n2n9gsvc at 4ax.com>, on 10/13/2003
>   at 06:03 PM, David C. Ullrich <ullrich at math.okstate.edu> said:
>
>>Well it certainly _can_ be formalized. (Have you any experience with
>>_axiomatic_ Euclidean geometry?
>
>That's not the same thing as formalized. 

Of course it's not. But it seems to me that his skepticism regarding
whether that proof _can_ be formalized must in fact be skeptism
regarding whether it's possible to state all the necessary axioms
and deduce the theorem without any appeal to the way things
look.

>Such authors as Hilbert left
>out steps that were formally necessary but would have obscured the
>reader's understanding.

************************

David C. Ullrich