Log24

Suggested by Peter J. Cameron's weblog post today on Halmos,
by a July 18 post in this  journal on the Norwegian mathematician Abel,
by a link in the July 18 post to  "Death Proof," and by today's
midday New York Lottery (459 and 7404)—

From July 4, 2004 (7404 interpreted as a date)—

"There are two unfortunate connotations of 'proof' that come from mathe-
matics and make the word inappropriate in discussions of the security of cryp-
tographic systems. The first is the notion of 100% certainty. Most people not
working in a given specialty regard a 'theorem' that is 'proved' as something
that they should accept without question. The second connotation is of an intri-
cate, highly technical sequence of steps. From a psychological and sociological
point of view, a 'proof of a theorem' is an intimidating notion: it is something
that no one outside an elite of narrow specialists is likely to understand in detail
or raise doubts about. That is, a 'proof' is something that a non-specialist does
not expect to really have to read and think about.

The word 'argument,' which we prefer here, has very different connotations."

— "Another Look at 'Provable Security'," 
by Neal Koblitz and Alfred J. Menezes, July 4, 2004
(updated on July 16, 2004; October 25, 2004; March 31, 2005; and May 4, 2005)

As for 459, see Post  459 in this journal.

Related material: The Race, Crossing the Bridge, Aristophanic View, and Story Theory.

Continuing yesterday's lottery meditation…

The NY evening numbers yesterday were 244 and 2962.

The latter suggests Post  2962—

There is no Post  244 here, but a search within this journal for 244 yields…

    See also Halmos Tombstone and Death Proof.