Comment on Many Weak Arguments vs. One Relatively Strong Argument

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 20:13:04 GMT

What I was highlighting is the effect size.

As a mathematician, it's possible to get an impression of the type "physicists' reasoning isn't rigorous, because they don't use, e.g. epsilon delta proofs of theorems involving limits, and the reasoning is like a sloppier version of mathematical reasoning."

The real situation is closer to "physicists dream up highly nontrivial things that are true, that virtually no mathematicians would have been able to come up with without knowledge of physics, and that mathematicians don't understand sufficiently well to be able to prove even after dozens of years of reflection."

Discuss