Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!rutgers!uwm.edu!rpi!dali.cs.montana.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!usc!jarthur!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!lfcs!jha
From: jha@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Jamie Andrews)
Newsgroups: comp.theory
Subject: Re: Question About the Four Color Proof
Message-ID: <5175@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 16 Jul 90 14:28:38 GMT
References: <9615@hubcap.clemson.edu> <1212@s8.Morgan.COM> <1593@oravax.UUCP> <3964@dweazel.sw.mcc.com>
Reply-To: jha@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Jamie Andrews)
Organization: Laboratory for the Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh U
Lines: 21

In article <3964@dweazel.sw.mcc.com> wme@dweazel.sw.mcc.com (Michael Evangelist) writes:
>This is only one of the beeves and not the most important. What if
>computers had been available for case checking a hundred years ago
>and had been used to establish the four-color conjecture as a
>mathematical fact? Much graph theory would never have seen the light
>of day. 

     This is a bit silly.  If computers had been available,
period, a hundred years ago, then the world would be an
inconceivably different place, and I doubt that the loss of
the graph theory you speak of would be noticed.

     For one thing, the philosophy and science of program
correctness would be about 80 years older, and I'm sure we'd
have a lot of very valuable results in that field.  Who knows,
we may even have transcended the silly bickering that
characterizes it today.

--Jamie.		Original material copyright (c) 1990 by Jamie Andrews;
  jha@lfcs.ed.ac.uk	for distribution only on unmoderated USENET newsgroups.
 "If you try to leave this room, I'll tackle you." -- Don Getty to Clyde Wells