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Comment by danuker | Hacker News Reader

I suspect computers can also help us get deeper. Stuff like computer algebra systems.

Maybe some CAS-assisted work gets us into feedback loops allowing us to go indefinitely, as in a technological singularity.

But the "shallow" part is also quite wide.

You can teach people what you've learned forever, for instance.

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do you have experience with CAS? i would love to learn how to use CAS to write proof more effectively

CAS can help with the more mechanical parts of a proof. I use it often to quickly check if something can be rewritten to something else I want. The sad part is that even if the CAS doesn't find a solution it doesn't mean there is no solution. It just didn't find it. But it can save a lot of work if the first thing you do is just quickly check, if you're lucky you just saved yourself a lot of work.

I don't know what field you are in so it may or may not be helpful to you.

One very common and simple use case is looking for counter examples. If your theory states for example that "all Matrices with property X also have property Y" then it is quick and easy to generate a whole bunch of matrices with property X and check that they all have property Y. Of course that doesn't actually prove anything, but it can be used to disprove a statement and save you a bunch of time chasing down a dead end.

To be honest, my experience is limited to double-checking my algebra with the free Wolfram Alpha. I need it maybe a few times a year.

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