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Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 11 2012 @ 04:54 AM EDT |
In my experience what you say (about most people not being exposed to
mathematical proofs) is true to a significant degree but not completely.
While it's been a good long while, I remember the bulk of my calculus courses
being "technique and application", as you say. But I also remmeber
some proofs in there. And then going back further, to high school, Geometry was
*entirely* about proofs. And earlier yet, I remember being exposed to proof by
contradiction in 9th grade Algebra to prove that the square root of 2 is
irrational.
Perhaps things have changed in the intervening decades, but based on the classes
I took (limiting myself for this discussion to the low-level ones that many
people take) I would think many people have had exposure to mathematical proofs.
Probably not enough to become proficient or to become a habitual way of
thinking, but at least enough to know that they are.
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