epicgamer
@epicgamerftw.bsky.social
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HANDS OFF 🇬🇱🇻🇪🇮🇷 gamer, illiterate, manchild, luddite, 27 Im really miserable and hate everything occasional fandom content he/him bluesky elder (invited in) @epicgamerftw@mastodon.social
![Appel and Haken's announcement was widely reported by the news media around the world,[21] and the math department at the University of Illinois used a postmark stating "Four colors suffice."[22] At the same time, the unusual nature of the proof—it was the first major theorem to be proved with extensive computer assistance—and the complexity of the human-verifiable portion aroused considerable controversy.[23] Not all mathematicians accepted that a computer-based demonstration could qualify as a genuine proof. Even some of those who did, like Ian Stewart, found the proof unsatisfying, since it fell out as a fait accompli and lacked a sense of structure. "The answer appears as a kind of monstrous coincidence," wrote Stewart. H. S. M. Coxeter found it "very unlikely that anyone can break that proof down into something that one would regard as an ordinary proof".[24]
In the early 1980s, rumors spread of a flaw in the Appel–Haken proof. Ulrich Schmidt at RWTH Aachen had examined Appel and Haken's proof for his master's thesis that was published in 1981.[25] He had checked about 40% of the unavoidability portion and found a significant error in the discharging procedure (Appel & Haken 1989). In 1986, Appel and Haken were asked by the editor of Mathematical Intelligencer to write an article addressing the rumors of flaws in their proof. They replied that the rumors were due to a "misinterpretation of [Schmidt's] results" and obliged with a detailed article.[25] Their magnum opus, Every Planar Map is Four-Colorable, a book claiming a complete and detailed proof (with a microfiche supplement of over 400 pages), appeared in 1989; it explained and corrected the error discovered by Schmidt as well as several further errors found by others.[20]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:paqedy6p4sptvjwk5uvd36hu/bafkreiam2pom5tprwuftkqh75l2l3s7k6xl2ct4s4hhhozv52rxttuzs6a)
