Fantastic Links
Free Tools
Time saving tools, templates and ideas that I have written, trialled and tested, that work. Send in your best templates and ideas for teaching and I'll put them here to share.
Creativity & Inspiration
Videos Cleese, Jobs, Mitra, IB
Video2 Chomsky, Gilbert &
What if Money didn't matter ?
Video3 SHOCKING! The real purpose of your life!
FLOW, The SECRET to Happiness, How I fell in love with a FISH.
Video4 How a boy became an ARTIST
DESIGN Thinking
Infinite Thinking MACHINE
Video5 Shane Koyczan: "To This Day" ... for the bullied and beautiful.
Ken Robinson says SCHOOL KILLS CREATIVITY
What will be OBSOLETE in 2020
Video6 Dr Eric Topol & the SMART future Health care
Why Education in Finland Works
Finland's Revolutionary Education System
Flashmob, Jane Goodall
Video8 Quadcopters
George Lucas Visual Literacy Martin Scorsese Visual Literacy
Video9 Ramsey Musallam Curiosity Comes First
Video10 Benjamin Zander: The transformative power of classical music
Mind Candy
Newsletters
Articles & Seminars
Proof Techniques
Methods for getting people to believe you (as good as, if not better than, proof). A collection of proof techniques that will prove invaluable to both mathematicians and members of the general public.
PROOF TECHNIQUE #1 - 'Proof By Induction'
1. Obtain a large power transformer.
2. Find someone who does not believe your theorem.
3. Get this person to hold the terminals on the HV side of the transformer.
4. Apply 25000 volts AC to the LV side of the transformer.
5. Repeat step (4) until they agree with the theorem.
PROOF TECHNIQUE #2 - 'Proof By Contradiction'
1. State your theorem.
2. Wait for someone to disagree.
3. Contradict them.
PROOF TECHNIQUE #3 - Fire Proof
1. Summon all your inferiors for a departmental meeting.
2. Present your theorem.
3. Fire those who disagree.
PROOF TECHNIQUE #4 - The Famous Water Proof
1. State your theorem.
2. Wait for someone to disagree.
3. Drown them.
NB. This is closely related to the 'bullet' proof, but is easier to make look like an accident.
PROOF TECHNIQUE #5 - Idiot Proof
1. State your theorem.
2. Write exhaustive documentation with glossy colour pictures and arrows about which bit goes where.
3. Challenge anyone to not understand it.
PROOF TECHNIQUE #6 - Child Proof
1. State your theorem.
2. Encapsulate it in epoxy and shape it into an ellipsoid.
3. Put it in a jar with all the other proofs (one with one of those Press-to-Open lids).
4. Give it to a professor and challenge him to open it.
PROOF TECHNIQUE #7 - Rabbit Proof
1. Generate theorems at an altogether startling rate, much faster than anybody is able to refute them. Use up every body else's paper. Run away at the slightest sign of danger.
2. Leave any crap in small, easily identified piles, in prominent places where you no longer are, and it cannot in fact be proven that you ever were.
PROOF TECHNIQUE #8 - Fool Proof
1. State your theorem.
2. Invite colleagues to comment.
3. If they don't agree, exclaim loudly, "You Fools!"
Other Proofs you might enjoy
© Cathy Brown 1998 - 2019