Science-Poetry

Theorem on the Existence of Poetry

By: Matthew B (School of Mathematics) Competition Year: 2017 Votes (2) | Comments (0)

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Prove that if this poem is written by Matthew Burniston, then this poem doesn’t exist. [4 marks]

We shall prove this by contradiction.
Assume that this poem exists, and assume further that it is written by Matthew Burniston.
By our further assumption, this poem doesn’t have a meaning.
However, the assertion that this poem doesn’t have meaning
Implies that the reader believes it does.
This implies that the poem does have meaning.
Hence this poem both has and doesn’t have meaning,
A contradiction □