Sunday, November 16, 2008

Proverbial Mathematics or
Mathematical Proverbs

We have lots of proverbs and quotes which are almost like logical implications. For example,
It is always darkest before the dawn

Mathematically, this translates to:
Dawn => darkest just before
which doesn't necessarily mean
darkest => dawn next
as, one would think, the original proverb is supposed to imply :-)

Another pair of quotes we have are:
All that glitters is not gold (NOT(glitter => gold))
Not all that is gold glitters (NOT(gold => glitter))
meaning gold and glitter are completely "independent" :-)

Can you think of some other similar ones?