Cognitive trajectory of proof by contradiction for transition-to-proof students

History and research on proof by contradiction suggests proof by contradiction is difficult for students in a number of ways. Students’ comprehension of already-written proofs by contradiction is one such aspect that has received relatively little attention. Applying the cognitive lens of Action-Process-Object-Schema (APOS) Theory to proof by contradiction, we constructed and tested a cognitive model that describes how a student might construct the concept ‘proof by contradiction’ in an introduction to proof course. Data for this study was collected from students in a series of five teaching interventions focused on proof by contradiction. This paper will report on two participants as case studies to illustrate that our cognitive trajectory for proof by contradiction is a useful model for describing how students may come to understand the proof method.     

Impacts of inquiry pedagogy on undergraduate students conceptions of the function of proof

Mathematicians and mathematics educators agree that proof is an important tool in mathematics, yet too often undergraduate students see proof as a superficial part of the discipline. While proof is often used by mathematicians to justify that a theorem is true, many times proof is used for another purpose entirely such as to explain why a particular statement is true or to show mathematics students a particular proof technique. This paper reports on a study that used a form of inquiry-based learning (IBL) in an introduction to proof course and measured the beliefs of students in this course about the different functions of proof in mathematics as compared to students in a non-IBL course. It was found that undergraduate students in an introduction to proof course had a more robust understanding of the functions of proof than previous studies would suggest. Additionally, students in the course taught using inquiry pedagogy were more likely to appreciate the communication, intellectual challenge, and providing autonomy functions of proof. It is hypothesized that these results are a response to the pedagogy of the course and the types of student activity that were emphasized.     

Combinatorial characterization of sub-hyperbolic rational maps

In 1980's, Thurston established a combinatorial characterization for post-critically finite rational maps among post-critically finite branched coverings of the two sphere to itself. A completed proof was written by Douady and Hubbard in their paper [A. Douady, J.H. Hubbard, A proof of Thurston's topological characterization of rational functions, Acta Math. 171 (1993) 263-297]. This criterion was then extended by Cui, Jiang, and Sullivan to sub-hyperbolic rational maps among sub-hyperbolic semi-rational branched coverings of the two sphere to itself. The goal of this paper is to present a new but simpler proof for the combinatorial characterization of sub-hyperbolic rational maps by adapting some arguments in the proof in Douady and Hubbard's paper.     

A motivated proof of the Göllnitz–Gordon–Andrews identities

We present what we call a “motivated proof” of the Göllnitz–Gordon–Andrews identities. A similar motivated proof of the Rogers–Ramanujan identities was previously given by G. E. Andrews and R. J. Baxter, and was subsequently generalized to Gordon’s identities by J. Lepowsky and M. Zhu. We anticipate that the present proof of the Göllnitz–Gordon–Andrews identities will illuminate certain twisted vertex-algebraic constructions.     

A Constructive Proof of Beurling-Lax Theorem

This paper deals with an alternative proof of Beurling-Lax theorem by adopting a constructive approach instead of the isomorphism technique which was used in the original proof.     

Artin's primitive root conjecture for function fields revisited

Artin's primitive root conjecture for function fields was proved by Bilharz in his thesis in 1937, conditionally on the proof of the Riemann hypothesis for function fields over finite fields, which was proved later by Weil in 1948. In this paper, we provide a simple proof of Artin's primitive root conjecture for function fields which does not use the Riemann hypothesis for function fields but rather modifies the classical argument of Hadamard and de la Vallée Poussin in their 1896 proof of the prime number theorem.     

A short hook-lengths bijection inspired by the Greene-Nijenhuis-Wilf proof

The celebrated Frame-Robinson-Thrall (Canad. J. Math. 6 (1954) 316–324) hook-lengths formula, counting the Young tableaux of a specified shape, is given a short bijective proof. This proof was obtained by translating the elegant Greene-Nijenhuis-Wilf proof (Adv. in Math. 31 (1979) 104–109) into bijective language.     

The level set method of Joó and its use in minimax theory

In this paper we discuss the level set method of Joó and how to use it to give an elementary proof of the well-known minimax theorem of Sion. Although this proof technique was initiated by Joó and based on the intersection of upper level sets and a clever use of the topological notion of connectedness, it is not very well known and accessible for researchers in optimization. At the same time we simplify the original proof of Joó and give a more elementary proof of the celebrated minimax theorem of Sion.     

Class numbers of cyclic 2-extensions and Gross conjecture over ℚ

The Gross conjecture over ? was first claimed by Aoki in 1991. However, the original proof contains too many mistakes and false claims to be considered as a serious proof. This paper is an attempt to find a sound proof of the Gross conjecture under the outline of Aoki. We reduce the conjecture to an elementary conjecture concerning the class numbers of cyclic 2-extensions of ?.     

关于“费尔马最后定理的证明”一文的评注

本文对“费尔马最后定理的证明”一文作出几点评注，主要结论是该证明仅仅是对费尔马最后定理的部分情形的证明，即并没有完全证明费尔马最后定理     

Class numbers of cyclic 2-extensions and Gross conjecture over Q

The Gross conjecture over Q was first claimed by Aoki in 1991.However,the original proof contains too many mistakes and false claims to be considered as a serious proof.This paper is an attempt to find a sound proof of the Gross conjecture under the outline of Aoki.We reduce the conjecture to an elementary conjecture concerning the class numbers of cyclic 2-extensions of Q.     

A short proof of the wonderful lemma

The Wonderful Lemma, that was first proved by Roussel and Rubio, is one of the most important tools in the proof of the Strong Perfect Graph Theorem. Here we give a short proof of this lemma.     

Probabilistic verification of proofs in calculuses

We define a special kind of a probabilistically checkable proof system, namely, probabilistically checkable proof calculuses (PCP calculuses). A proof in such a calculus can be verified with sufficient confidence by examining only one random path in the proof tree, without reading the whole proof. The verification procedure just checks all applications of inference rules along the path; its running time is assumed to be polynomial in the theorem length. It is shown that the deductive power of PCP calculuses is characterized as follows: (i) the decision problem for theorems is in PSPACE for all PCP calculuses; and (ii) the mentioned problem is PSPACE-hard for some of the calculuses. Bibliography: 14 titles. Translated fromZapiski Nauchnykh Seminarov POMI, Vol. 241, 1997, pp. 97–116 This research was supported in part by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research. Translated by E. Ya. Dintsin.     

Kepler's area law in the Principia: filling in some details in Newton's proof of Proposition 1

During the past 30 years there has been controversy regarding the adequacy of Newton's proof of Prop. 1 in Book 1 of the Principia. This proposition is of central importance because its proof of Kepler's area law allowed Newton to introduce a geometric measure for time to solve problems in orbital dynamics in the Principia. It is shown here that the critics of Prop. 1 have misunderstood Newton's continuum limit argument by neglecting to consider the justification for this limit which he gave in Lemma 3. We clarify the proof of Prop. 1 by filling in some details left out by Newton which show that his proof of this proposition was adequate and well-grounded.     

A New Proof of the Protasov-Voynov Theorem on Semigroups of Nonnegative Matrices

A new combinatorial proof of the Protasov-Voynov theorem on the structure of irreducible semigroups of nonnegative matrices is proposed. The original proof was obtained by geometric methods.

     

Investigating undergraduate students’ proof schemes and perspectives about combinatorial proof

Combinatorics is an area of mathematics with accessible, rich problems and applications in a variety of fields. Combinatorial proof is an important topic within combinatorics that has received relatively little attention within the mathematics education community, and there is much to investigate about how students reason about and engage with combinatorial proof. In this paper, we use Harel and Sowder’s (1998) proof schemes to investigate ways that students may characterize combinatorial proofs as different from other types of proof. We gave five upper-division mathematics students combinatorial-proof tasks and asked them to reflect on their activity and combinatorial proof more generally. We found that the students used several of Harel and Sowder’s proof schemes to characterize combinatorial proof, and we discuss whether and how other proof schemes may emerge for students engaging in combinatorial proof. We conclude by discussing implications and avenues for future research.     

Minimax Results and Finite-Dimensional Separation

In this paper, we review and unify some classes of generalized convex functions introduced by different authors to prove minimax results in infinite-dimensional spaces and show the relations between these classes. We list also for the most general class already introduced by Jeyakumar (Ref. 1) an elementary proof of a minimax result. The proof of this result uses only a finite-dimensional separa- tion theorem; although this minimax result was already presented by Neumann (Ref. 2) and independently by Jeyakumar (Ref. 1), we believe that the present proof is shorter and more transparent.     

A new proof of partial regularity of solutions to Navier-Stokes equations

In this paper we give a new proof of the partial regularity of solutions to the incompressible Navier-Stokes equation in dimension 3 first proved by Caffarelli, Kohn and Nirenberg. The proof relies on a method introduced by De Giorgi for elliptic equations. This work was supported in part by NSF Grant DMS-0607953.     

Discussion on the convergence of Rosen's gradient projection method

Since Rosen's gradient projection method was published in 1960, a rigorous convergence proof of the method has remained to be an open question. A convergence proof for the three dimensional case is given in this paper. The whole proof, except one lemma which we failed to prove for the general case, is applicable to the general case. For the general case a convergence condition is given in the main theorem.This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under the research grant MCS 81-01214.