A curious example is the linear ordering on braid groups, first discovered by Patrick Dehornoy as a consequence of a large cardinal axiom. Proofs without set theory were discovered later -- and also earlier, but unpublished, by Thurston -- but Dehornoy believes that intuition from set theory was crucial in the his discovery of the result. See his book Braids and Self Distributivity, particularly the Introduction, which is available here.
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A curious example is the linear ordering on braid groups, first discovered by Patrick Dehornoy as a consequence of a large cardinal axiom. Proofs without set theory were discovered later, but Dehornoy believes that intuition from set theory was crucial in the discovery of the result. See his book Braids and Self Distributivity, particularly the Introduction, which is available here. |
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