[xdavidliu]

> A physicist and a mathematician are flying cross-country together. Each is keeping a diary of the trip. They fly over a white horse in Iowa. The physicist writes, 'There is a white horse in Iowa.' The mathematician writes, 'There exists, somewhere in the Midwest, a horse, white on top.

Reminds me of a quote from a favorite textbook [1] of mine:

> In mathematics, an argument must be airtight; that is, convincing in an absolute sense. In everyday life ... the standard of proof is lower ... evidence plays no role in a mathematical proof. A mathematician demands proof beyond _any_ doubt.

It's interesting how in the sciences, we worship at the altar of the almighty Evidence. However, in math, not even evidence is good enough.

[1] p. 17, _Introduction to the theory of computation, third edition, by Michael Sipser

[yencabulator]

> It's interesting how in the sciences, we worship at the altar of the almighty Evidence. However, in math, not even evidence is good enough.

An alternate way of looking at that is, math requires you to be explicit about basing your statements on observations: now you have probability theory.

[sukilot]

The Coq community is here to say that that claim is not true for most of math. Much false or weakly argued math is published and accepted. Mathematics is done only to the level of "reasonable doubt"