The Renewal Equation

A math odyssey

Readability

I was listless today and not very productive. I made multiple stabs at sitting down to do exercises, but I couldn’t concentrate on them. In the end, I watched some videos and started writing up my proof of the inscribed triangle proposition from last week. I hoped to post that this evening, but the writing took longer than I was able to spend blogging today. I’m trying to make this proof more readable than my other recent geometric proofs, and that absorbs a lot of time. Let me know if you think such an effort is worthwhile. It’s felt to me as if the recent proofs tended toward being obscure jumbles of letters.

Responses

  1. Yerpa

    Since part of your project is about training for tutoring, working on accessibility probably is worth time.

    Reply
    1. Olly

      Good point.

      Reply
  2. Tim McL

    I agree with Yerpa about accessibility being a good thing, but I guess I also want to say that I think the nature of proofs in plane geometry is that they look like yours. I’ve consistently been impressed at how tight your proofs are – how much they look and feel like what Euclid does.

    If you want a truly beautiful alternative to the approach you and Euclid take, you might look at Oliver Byrne’s “The First Six Books of The Elements of Euclid With Coloured Diagrams and Symbols,” published in 1847. Byrne has rightly been called the Matisse of geometry. There is a reproduction of his work at https://www.c82.net/euclid/ which is very very much worth savoring.

    Reply
    1. Olly

      I do like the spareness of the less accessible proofs. That is lost in something like I wrote in The Proof at Last. On the other hand, on Facebook, where I share some blog posts, I have had multiple people say that they enjoyed the verbose style much more.

      Reply

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