Proof by example: ---------------- The author gives only the case n = 2 and suggests that it contains most of the ideas of the general proof. Proof by intimidation: --------------------- "Trivial." Proof by vigorous handwaving: ---------------------------- Works well in a classroom or seminar setting. Proof by cumbersome notation: ---------------------------- Best done with access to at least four alphabets and special symbols. Proof by exhaustion: ------------------- An issue or two of a journal devoted to your proof is useful. Proof by omission: ----------------- "The reader may easily supply the details" "The other 253 cases are analogous" "..." Proof by obfuscation: -------------------- A long plotless sequence of true and/or meaningless syntactically related statements. Proof by wishful citation: ------------------------- The author cites the negation, converse, or generalization of a theorem from the literature to support his claims. Proof by funding: ---------------- How could three different government agencies be wrong? Proof by eminent authority: -------------------------- "I saw Karp in the elevator and he said it was probably NP-complete." Proof by personal communication: ------------------------------- "Eight-dimensional colored cycle stripping is NP-complete [Karp, personal communication]." Proof by reduction to the wrong problem: --------------------------------------- "To see that infinite-dimensional colored cycle stripping is decidable, we reduce it to the halting problem." Proof by reference to inaccessible literature: --------------------------------------------- The author cites a simple corollary of a theorem to be found in a privately circulated memoir of the Slovenian Philological Society, 1883. Proof by importance: ------------------- A large body of useful consequences all follow from the proposition in question. Proof by accumulated evidence: ----------------------------- Long and diligent search has not revealed a counterexample. Proof by cosmology: ------------------ The negation of the proposition is unimaginable or meaningless. Popular for proofs of the existence of God. Proof by mutual reference: ------------------------- In reference A, Theorem 5 is said to follow from Theorem 3 in reference B, which is shown to follow from Corollary 6.2 in reference C, which is an easy consequence of Theorem 5 in reference A. Proof by metaproof: ------------------ A method is given to construct the desired proof. The correctness of the method is proved by any of these techniques. Proof by picture: ---------------- A more convincing form of proof by example. Combines well with proof by omission. Proof by vehement assertion: --------------------------- It is useful to have some kind of authority relation to the audience. Proof by ghost reference: ------------------------ Nothing even remotely resembling the cited theorem appears in the reference given. Proof by forward reference: -------------------------- Reference is usually to a forthcoming paper of the author, which is often not as forthcoming as at first. Proof by semantic shift: ----------------------- Some of the standard but inconvenient definitions are changed for the statement of the result. Proof by appeal to intuition: ---------------------------- Cloud-shaped drawings frequently help here.
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