Gresham College Lectures
Gresham College has been providing free public lectures since 1597, making us London's oldest higher education institution. This podcast offers our recorded lectures that are free to access from the Gresham College website, or our YouTube channel.
Gresham College Lectures
Proof by Computer and Proof by Human
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Gresham College
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The idea of a proof as a simple, easily-checked method of establishing truth has undergone modification in the age of computers. But the specialisation of the mathematical world has resulted in difficulties with even entirely human-made proofs. Many major recent results of mathematics have proofs so specialised that there are very few people in the world who can understand them, while some proofs depend on computers to do calculations no human could perform. Where does pure mathematics stand in the digital age?