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PROOFS

Proof by Example:  The author gives only the case n=2 and suggests that
it contains most of the ideas of the general proof.

Proof by Intimidation: "Trivial."

Proof by Cumbersome Notation: Best done with access to at least four
alphabets and special symbols.

Proof by Exhaustion:  An issue or two of a journal devoted to your proof
is useful.

Proof by Omission:  "The reader may supply the details."  "The other 253
cases are analogous."

Proof by Obfuscation:  A long plotless sequence of true and/or
meaningless syntactically related statements.

Proof by Wishful Citation:  The author cites a negation, converse, or
generalization of a theorem from the literature to support his claims.

Proof by Funding:  How could nine different government agencies be
wrong?

Proof by Picture:  A more convincing form of proof by example.  Works
well with proof by omission.

Proof by Vehement Assertion:  It is useful to have some kind of
authority relation to the audience.

Proof by Ghost Reference:  Nothing even remotely resembling the cited
Theorem appears in the reference given.

Proof by Forward Reference:  Reference is usually to a forthcoming paper
of the author, which is not often as forthcoming as the first.

Proof by Semantic Shift:  Some standard but inconvenient definitions are
changed for the statement of the result.

Proof by Appeal to Intuition:  Cloud shaped drawings frequently help
here.

Proof by Elimination of the Counter-Example:  "Assume for the moment
that the hypothesis is true.  Now let's suppose we find a
counter-example.  so what?  QED"

Proof by Assumption:  "For the last century no one acquainted with the
facts has disputed..."  an equivalent statement is, "I did not look up
the actual facts but since most people I know think this way, it follows
that everyone else does too."

Proof by Eminent Authority:  "I saw Karp in the elevator and he said it
was probably NP-complete."

Proof by Personal Communication:  "Eight-dimensional colored cycle
stripping is NP-complete."  [Karp, personal communication]

Proof by Reduction to the Wrong Problem: "To see that
infinite-dimensional colored-cycle stripping is decidable, we reduce it
to the halting problem."

Proof by Reference to Inaccessible Literature:  The author sites a
simple corollary of a theorem to be found in a privately circulated
memoir of the Slovenian Philological Society, 1883.

Proof by Importance:  A large body of useful consequences all follow
from the proposition in question.

Proof by Accumulated Evidence:  Long and diligent search has not
revealed a counter-example.

Proof by Mutual Reference:  In reference A, Theorem 5 is said to follow
from Theorem 3 in Reference B, which is shown to follow from Corollary
6.2 in Reference C which is an easy consequence of Theorem A.

Proof by Metaproof:  A method is given to construct the desired proof.
The correctness of the method is proved by any of these techniques.

Proof by Assertion: This is correct.