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It has been estimated that over a quarter of a million theorems are proved every year.[11] 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.[12] 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 several ongoing projects hope to shorten and simplify this proof.[13] Another theorem of this type is the Four color theorem whose computer generated proof is too long for a human to read. It is certainly the longest known proof of a theorem whose statement can be easily understood by a layman. |
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