How to Write a 21st Century Proof

Reporting from the Heidelberg Laureate Forum, Evelyn Lamb summarizes computer scientist Leslie Lamport's advice to mathematicians about how to write proofs.

Lamport's method, which employs a hierarchical structure Lamb says "doesn’t seem entirely dissimilar from the two-column proofs that most of us learned in middle school or high school geometry class," aims to make proofs easier to read and harder to get wrong.

Says Lamport:

When you write proofs, you’re trying to do two things. On the one hand, you want to show that something is beautiful, but on the other hand you’re trying to show it’s true. Truth may be beauty and beauty truth, but you don’t demonstrate them the same way.