Timeline for Quick proofs of hard theorems
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
3 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 21, 2010 at 12:42 | comment | added | Andrea Ferretti | @Paul: can you explain (or link to) your argument about Baire and bump functions? It would be nice to see. | |
| May 20, 2010 at 14:00 | comment | added | Paul Siegel | I think the Baire category theorem is responsible for quick proofs of lots of hard theorems, such as the existence of continuous nowhere differentiable functions. I recently worked out a way to use it to prove the existence of bump functions, too. I think the Hahn-Banach theorem was also considered difficult in its time, and lots of its easy consequences started life as nontrivial theorems. I guess there are a wealth of examples in functional analysis, perhaps since analysis has been around for so long. For that reason I was expecting more examples in number theory and Algebraic geometry. | |
| May 18, 2010 at 15:19 | history | answered | Timothy Chow | CC BY-SA 2.5 |