A Direct Proof that Solutions of the Six Painlevé Equations Have No Movable Singularities Except Poles

The Painlevé property of an nth-order differential equation is that no solution has any movable singularities other than poles. This property is strongly indicative of complete integrability (the existence of n ? 1 integrals). However, the usual technique employed to test for the Painlevé property seeks only movable algebraic (or logarithmic) singularities. More general singularities are ignored. But, the six standard Painlevé equations are known to have no such singularities. Painlevé's proof of this is long and laborious; we give here a direct proof.