Tuesday 16 October 2007

Proof and Wonder

I've spent most of yesterday and today (and some of the weekend) thinking about a proof concerning partitions that I needed for the chapter that I am currently writing up. It seemed something small and insignificant in a way, until I realised that the truth of what I was asserting was not as obvious as I thought and would require a separate Lemma/Theorem to show it (not sure whether it is a Lemma or if it is cool enough to be granted Theorem status).

Anyway, ten minutes ago I finally finished a proof of it, and the feeling is just great. I need to write down some more notation for it, as my pages currently have some diagrams representing things which I'll have to do algebraically, but basically I'm done. It was the last thing I needed for this chapter. Hopefully my supervisor will just find cosmetic changes needed from now on.

Yeah, it feels pretty sweet to have that done, and in the immediate seconds and minutes after completing it I wondered if there was anything that could top that today. Five minutes later I saw this video and I realised that something could.



Getting the proof is a wonderful feeling - then seeing something wonderful like an octopus' camouflage in action is utterly brilliant. Despite all the ugly things in life, this is an amazing world.

Hmm. I think that's me done for the day.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love the feeling after working successfully through a proof. I can imagine it's that much better when it's theorem-worthy


And that's a stunning video