> 36. The use of a program to prove the 4 color theorem will not change mathematics -- it merely demonstrates the theorem, a challenge for a century, is probably not important to mathematicians.
> 36. The use of a program to prove the 4 color theorem will not change mathematics -- it merely demonstrates the theorem, a challenge for a century, is probably not important to mathematicians.
For the sake of completeness, the Four Colour Theorem was proved with the aid of a computer in 1976, although there were, er, quibbles with the original published result not finally put to bed until 1989. It was the first major theorem to be proved with computer assistance (Appel and Haken broke the theorem down to ~1400 configurations that were all computer verified).