Transcription of Introduction to mathematical arguments
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Introduction to mathematical arguments (background handout for courses requiring proofs)by Michael HutchingsA mathematicalproofis an argument which convinces other people thatsomething is true. Math isn t a court of law, so a preponderance of theevidence or beyond any reasonable doubt isn t good enough. In principlewe try to prove things beyond any doubt at all although in real life peoplemake mistakes, and total rigor can be impractical for large projects. (Thereare also some subtleties in the foundations of mathematics, such as G odel stheorem, but never mind.)
certain common-sense principles of logic, or proof techniques, which you can use to start with statements which you know and deduce statements which you didn’t know before. These notes give a very basic introduction to the above. One could easily write a whole book on this topic; see for example How to read and do proofs:
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