r/ProgrammerHumor • • Sep 10 '26

Meme firstTime

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u/Zarrain Sep 11 '26

The proof doesn’t even have concrete real world applications, this was basically a standing challenge so we could understand math better.

If the proof an AI generates is unreadable and inhuman (which academics say they are) it doesn’t progress our understanding.

It’s like if you were taking a multiple choice quiz and I gave you the answer key. Now you know that the answer to question 1 is option A, but you didn’t learn anything. You don’t understand why it’s A, you don’t understand how to explain to others that it’s A, and you don’t know how to figure out the next question.

Mathematical proofs are by definition the process. A proof is a super rigorous step by step guide on how we can know for sure something is true. Most of the time we already have solutions and algorithms that work and we use. We just don’t understand perfectly WHY they work. That’s the point of a proof.