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In mathematics, a theorem is a statement which has been proven on the basis of previously established statements, such as other theorems, and previously accepted statements, such as axioms. The derivation of a theorem is often interpreted as a proof of the truth of the resulting expression, but different deductive systems can yield other interpretations, depending on the meanings of the derivation rules. Theorems have two components, called the hypotheses and the conclusions. The proof of a mathematical theorem is a logical argument demonstrating that the conclusions are a necessary consequence of the hypotheses, in the sense that if the hypotheses are true then the conclusions must also be true, without any further assumptions. The concept of a theorem is therefore fundamentally deductive, in contrast to the notion of a scientific theory, which is empirical.

Although they can be written in a completely symbolic form using, for example, propositional calculus, theorems are often expressed in a natural language such as English. The same is true of proofs, which are often expressed as logically organized and clearly worded informal arguments intended to demonstrate that a formal symbolic proof can be constructed. Such arguments are typically easier to check than purely symbolic ones — indeed, many mathematicians would express a preference for a proof that not only demonstrates the validity of a theorem, but also explains in some way why it is obviously true. In some cases, a picture alone may be sufficient to prove a theorem. Because theorems lie at the core of mathematics, they are also central to its aesthetics. Theorems are often described as being "trivial", or "difficult", or "deep", or even "beautiful". These subjective judgments vary not only from person to person, but also with time: for example, as a proof is simplified or better understood, a theorem that was once difficult may become trivial. On the other hand, a deep theorem may be simply stated, but its proof may involve surprising and subtle connections between disparate areas of mathematics. Fermat's Last Theorem is a particularly well-known example of such a theorem.

Informal accounts of theorems

Logically, many theorems are of the form of an indicative conditional: if A, then B. Such a theorem does not state that B is always true, only that B must be true if A is true. In this case A is called the hypothesis of the theorem (note that "hypothesis" here is something very different from a conjecture) and B the conclusion (A and B can also be denoted the antecedent and consequent). The theorem "If n is an even natural number then n/2 is a natural number" is a typical example in which the hypothesis is that "n is an even natural number" and the conclusion is that "n/2 is also a natural number".

In order to be proven, a theorem must be expressible as a precise, formal statement. Nevertheless, theorems are usually expressed in natural language rather than in a completely symbolic form, with the intention that the reader will be able to produce a formal statement from the informal one. In addition, there are often hypotheses which are understood in context, rather than explicitly stated, though a stated hypothesis must coincide with the overall intuition of the theorem for it to be accepted as a solution under Newtons terms.

It is common in mathematics to choose a number of hypotheses that are assumed to be true within a given theory, and then declare that the theory consists of all theorems provable using those hypotheses as assumptions. In this case the hypotheses that form the foundational basis are called the axioms (or postulates) of the theory. The field of mathematics known as proof theory studies formal axiom systems and the proofs that can be performed within them.

Some theorems are "trivial," in the sense that they follow from definitions, axioms, and other theorems in obvious ways and do not contain any surprising insights. Some, on the other hand, may be called "deep": their proofs may be long and difficult, involve areas of mathematics superficially distinct from the statement of the theorem itself, or show surprising connections between disparate areas of mathematics. A theorem might be simple to state and yet be deep. An excellent example is Fermat's Last Theorem, and there are many other examples of simple yet deep theorems in number theory and combinatorics, among other areas.

There are other theorems for which a proof is known, but the proof cannot easily be written down. The most prominent examples are the four color theorem and the Kepler conjecture. Both of these theorems are only known to be true by reducing them to a computational search which is then verified by a computer program. Initially, many mathematicians did not accept this form of proof, but it has become more widely accepted in recent years. The mathematician Doron Zeilberger has even gone so far as to claim that these are possibly the only nontrivial results that mathematicians have ever proved. Many mathematical theorems can be reduced to more straightforward computation, including polynomial identities, trigonometric identities and hypergeometric identities.

Relation to proof

The notion of a theorem is deeply intertwined with the concept of proof. Indeed, theorems are true precisely in the sense that they possess proofs. Therefore, to establish a mathematical statement as a theorem, the existence of a line of reasoning from axioms in the system (and other, already established theorems) to the given statement must be demonstrated.

Although the proof is necessary to produce a theorem, it is not usually considered part of the theorem. And even though more than one proof may be known for a single theorem, only one proof is required to establish the theorem's validity. The Pythagorean theorem and the law of quadratic reciprocity are contenders for the title of theorem with the greatest number of distinct proofs.

Theorems in logic

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Logic, especially in the field of proof theory, considers theorems as statements (called formulas or well formed formulas) of a formal language. The statements of the language are strings of symbols and may be broadly divided into nonsense and well-formed formulas. A set of deduction rules, also called transformation rules or rules of inference, must be provided. These deduction rules tell exactly when a formula can be derived from a set of premises. The set of well-formed formulas may be broadly divided into theorems and non-theorems. However, according to Hofstadter, a formal system will often simply define all of its well-formed formula as theorems.

Different sets of derivation rules give rise to different interpretations of what it means for an expression to be a theorem. Some derivation rules and formal languages are intended to capture mathematical reasoning; the most common examples use first-order logic. Other deductive systems describe term rewriting, such as the reduction rules for λ calculus.

The definition of theorems as elements of a formal language allows for results in proof theory that study the structure of formal proofs and the structure of provable formulas. The most famous result is Gödel's incompleteness theorem; by representing theorems about basic number theory as expressions in a formal language, and then representing this language within number theory itself, Gödel constructed examples of statements that are neither provable nor disprovable from axiomatizations of number theory.

Relation with scientific theories

Theorems in mathematics and theories in science are fundamentally different in their epistemology. A scientific theory cannot be proven; its key attribute is that it is falsifiable, that is, it makes predictions about the natural world that are testable by experiments. Any disagreement between prediction and experiment demonstrates the incorrectness of the scientific theory, or at least limits its accuracy or domain of validity. Mathematical theorems, on the other hand, are purely abstract formal statements: the proof of a theorem cannot involve experiments or other empirical evidence in the same way such evidence is used to support scientific theories.

Nonetheless, there is some degree of empiricism and data collection involved in the discovery of mathematical theorems. By establishing a pattern, sometimes with the use of a powerful computer, mathematicians may have an idea of what to prove, and in some cases even a plan for how to set about doing the proof. For example, the Collatz conjecture has been verified for start values up to about 2.88 × 10. The Riemann hypothesis has been verified for the first 10 trillion zeroes of the zeta function. Neither of these statements is considered to be proven.

Such evidence does not constitute proof. For example, the Mertens conjecture is a statement about natural numbers that is now known to be false, but no explicit counterexample (i.e., a natural number n for which the Mertens function M(n) equals or exceeds the square root of n) is known: all numbers less than 10 have the Mertens property, and the smallest number which does not have this property is only known to be less than the exponential of 1.59 × 10, which is approximately 10 to the power 4.3 × 10. Since the number of particles in the universe is generally considered to be less than 10 to the power 100 (a googol), there is no hope to find an explicit counterexample by exhaustive search.

Note that the word "theory" also exists in mathematics, to denote a body of mathematical axioms, definitions and theorems, as in, for example, group theory. There are also "theorems" in science, particularly physics, and in engineering, but they often have statements and proofs in which physical assumptions and intuition play an important role; the physical axioms on which such "theorems" are based are themselves falsifiable.

Terminology

Theorems are often indicated by several other terms: the actual label "theorem" is reserved for the most important results, whereas results which are less important, or distinguished in other ways, are named by different terminology.

• A proposition is a statement not associated with any particular theorem. This term sometimes connotes a statement with a simple proof, or a basic consequence of a definition that needs to be stated, but is obvious enough to require no proof. The word proposition is sometimes used for the statement part of a theorem.
• A lemma is a "pre-theorem", a statement that forms part of the proof of a larger theorem. The distinction between theorems and lemmas is rather arbitrary, since one mathematician's major result is another's minor claim. Gauss's lemma and Zorn's lemma, for example, are interesting enough that some authors present the nominal lemma without going on to use it in the proof of a theorem.
• A corollary is a proposition that follows with little or no proof from one other theorem or definition. That is, proposition B is a corollary of a proposition A if B can readily be deduced from A.
• A claim is a necessary or independently interesting result that may be part of the proof of another statement. Despite the name, claims must be proved.

There are other terms, less commonly used, which are conventionally attached to proven statements, so that certain theorems are referred to by historical or customary names. For examples:

• Identity, used for theorems which state an equality between two mathematical expressions. Examples include Euler's identity and Vandermonde's identity.
• Rule, used for certain theorems such as Bayes' rule and Cramer's rule, that establish useful formulas.
• Law. Examples include the law of large numbers, the law of cosines, and Kolmogorov's zero-one law.
• Principle. Examples include Harnack's principle, the least upper bound principle, and the pigeonhole principle.
• A Converse is a reverse theorem. For example, If a theorem states that A is related to B, its converse would state that B is related to A. The converse of a theorem need not be always true.

A few well-known theorems have even more idiosyncratic names. The division algorithm is a theorem expressing the outcome of division in the natural numbers and more general rings. The Banach–Tarski paradox is a theorem in measure theory that is paradoxical in the sense that it contradicts common intuitions about volume in three-dimensional space.

An unproven statement that is believed to be true is called a conjecture (or sometimes a hypothesis, but with a different meaning from the one discussed above). To be considered a conjecture, a statement must usually be proposed publicly, at which point the name of the proponent may be attached to the conjecture, as with Goldbach's conjecture. Other famous conjectures include the Collatz conjecture and the Riemann hypothesis.

Layout

A theorem and its proof are typically laid out as follows:

Theorem (name of person who proved it and year of discovery, proof or publication).

Statement of theorem (sometimes called the proposition).

Proof.

Description of proof.

End mark.

The end of the proof may be signalled by the letters Q.E.D. meaning "quod erat demonstrandum" or by one of the tombstone marks "□" or "∎" meaning "End of Proof", introduced by Paul Halmos following their usage in magazine articles.

The exact style will depend on the author or publication. Many publications provide instructions or macros for typesetting in the house style.

It is common for a theorem to be preceded by definitions describing the exact meaning of the terms used in the theorem. It is also common for a theorem to be preceded by a number of propositions or lemmas which are then used in the proof. However, lemmas are sometimes embedded in the proof of a theorem, either with nested proofs, or with their proofs presented after the proof of the theorem.

Corollaries to a theorem are either presented between the theorem and the proof, or directly after the proof. Sometimes corollaries have proofs of their own which explain why they follow from the theorem.

Lore

It has been estimated that over a quarter of a million theorems are proved every year.

The well-known aphorism, "A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems", is probably due to Alfréd Rényi, although it is often attributed to Rényi's colleague Paul Erdős (and Rényi may have been thinking of Erdős), who was famous for the many theorems he produced, the number of his collaborations, and his coffee drinking.

The classification of finite simple groups is regarded by some to be the longest proof of a theorem; it comprises tens of thousands of pages in 500 journal articles by some 100 authors. These papers are together believed to give a complete proof, and there are several ongoing projects to shorten and simplify this proof. Another theorem of this type is the Four color theorem whose computer generated proof is too long to be read by a human. It is certainly the longest proof of a theorem whose statement can be easily understood by a layman.

Formalized account of theorems

A theorem may be expressed in a formal language (or "formalized"). A formal theorem is the purely formal analogue of a theorem. In general, a formal theorem is a type of well-formed formula that satisfies certain logical and syntactic conditions. The notation ${\displaystyle \vdash }$ ${\displaystyle S}$ is often used to indicate that ${\displaystyle S}$ is a theorem.

Formal theorems consist of formulas of a formal language and the transformation rules of a formal system. Specifically, a formal theorem is always the last formula of a derivation in some formal system each formula of which is a logical consequence of the formulas which came before it in the derivation. The initially accepted formulas in the derivation are called its axioms, and are the basis on which the theorem is derived. A set of theorems is called a theory.

What makes formal theorems useful and of interest is that they can be interpreted as true propositions and their derivations may be interpreted as a proof of the truth of the resulting expression. A set of formal theorems may be referred to as a formal theory. A theorem whose interpretation is a true statement about a formal system is called a metatheorem.

Syntax and semantics

The concept of a formal theorem is fundamentally syntactic, in contrast to the notion of a "true proposition" in which semantics are introduced. Different deductive systems may be constructed so as to yield other interpretations, depending on the presumptions of the derivation rules (i.e. belief, justification or other modalities). The soundness of a formal system depends on whether or not all of its theorems are also validities. A validity is a formula that is true under any possible interpretation, e.g. in classical propositional logic validities are tautologies. A formal system is considered semantically complete when all of its tautologies are also theorems.

Derivation of a theorem

The notion of a theorem is very closely connected to its formal proof (also called a "derivation"). To illustrate how derivations are done, we will work in a very simplified formal system. Let us call ours ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {FS}}}$ Its alphabet consists only of two symbols { A, B } and its formation rule for formulas is:

Any string of symbols of ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {FS}}}$ which is at least 3 symbols long, and which is not infinitely long, is a formula. Nothing else is a formula.

The single axiom of ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {FS}}}$ is:

ABBA

The only rule of inference (transformation rule) for ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {FS}}}$ is:

Any occurrence of "A" in a theorem may be replaced by an occurrence of the string "AB" and the result is a theorem.

Theorems in ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {FS}}}$ are defined as those formulae which have a derivation ending with that formula. For example

1. ABBA (Given as axiom)
2. ABBBA (by applying the transformation rule)
3. ABBBAB (by applying the transformation rule)

is a derivation. Therefore "ABBBAB" is a theorem of ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {FS}}\,.}$ The notion of truth (or falsity) cannot be applied to the formula "ABBBAB" until an interpretation is given to its symbols. Thus in this example, the formula does not yet represent a proposition, but is merely an empty abstraction.

Two metatheorems of ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {FS}}}$ are:

Every theorem begins with "A".

Every theorem has exactly two "A"s.

Interpretation of a formal theorem

Theorems and theories

See also

• Inference
• List of theorems
• Toy theorem

Notes

1. For full text of 2nd edition of 1940, see Elisha Scott Loomis. "The Pythagorean proposition: its demonstrations analyzed and classified, and bibliography of sources for data of the four kinds of proofs" (PDF). Education Resources Information Center. Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved 26 September 2010. Originally published in 1940 and reprinted in 1968 by National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
2. However, both theorems and theories are investigations. See Heath 1897 Introduction, The terminology of Archimedes, p. clxxxii:"theorem (θεὼρνμα) from θεωρεἳν to investigate"
3. Weisstein, Eric W. "Deep Theorem". MathWorld.
4. Doron Zeilberger. "Opinion 51".
5. Petkovsek et al. 1996.
6. Hofstadter 1980
7. The word law can also refer to an axiom, a rule of inference, or, in probability theory, a probability distribution.
8. Hoffman 1998, p. 204.
9. Hoffman 1998, p. 7.
10. An enormous theorem: the classification of finite simple groups, Richard Elwes, Plus Magazine, Issue 41 December 2006.

References

• Heath, Sir Thomas Little (1897). The works of Archimedes. Dover. Retrieved 15 November 2009.
• Hoffman, P. (1998). The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdős and the Search for Mathematical Truth. Hyperion, New York. ISBN 1857028295.
• Hofstadter, Douglas (). Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. Basic Books. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
• Hunter, Geofrfrey (1996) . Metalogic: An Introduction to the Metatheory of Standard First Order Logic. University of California Press. ISBN 0520023560.
• Mates, Benson (1972). Elementary Logic. Oxford University Press. ISBN 019501491X.
• Petkovsek, Marko; Wilf, Herbert; Zeilberger, Doron (1996). A = B. A.K. Peters, Wellesley, Massachusetts. ISBN 1568810636.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

External links

• Weisstein, Eric W. "Theorem". MathWorld.
• Theorem of the Day

• Use dmy dates from October 2010
• Mathematical terminology
• Theorems
• Concepts in logic
• Logical syntax
• Logical consequence
• Philosophical logic
• Philosophy of language