English

The Method(!) of "Guess and Check"

Combinatorics 2015-02-17 v1

Abstract

The problems of enumerating lattice walks, with an arbitrary finite set of allowed steps, both in one and two dimensions, where one must always stay in the non-negative half-line and quarter-plane respectively, are used, as case studies, to illustrate the `naive' methodology of guess-and-check, where rigorous proofs are possible, but not worth the trouble. We argue that this is a metaphor for future math.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1502.04377,
  title  = {The Method(!) of "Guess and Check"},
  author = {Shalosh B. Ekhad and Doron Zeilberger},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1502.04377},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

14 pages, accompanied by four Maple packages obtainable from http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/mamarim/mamarimhtml/gac.html

R2 v1 2026-06-22T08:30:03.464Z