From Ken Zetie
Your correspondent Don Jewett was reminded of the story of a computer proving
the equality of the base angles of an isosceles triangle
(7 August, p 52).
Unfortunately it was just that— a story.
According to Douglas Hofstadter in his book Creative Analogies there
are two holes in the claim. First, the computer program in question did not find
the proof—researchers using it realised that it would find the proof if
asked a particular question. The second hole in the claim is worse, though.
Pappus of Alexandria got there first, about 1700 years ago.
London
