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However, there is a non-constructive proof that shows that linkedness is decidable in polynomial time. The proof relies on the following facts: The set of graphs for which the answer is "yes" is closed under taking minors. I. e., if a graph G can be embedded linklessly in 3-d space, then every minor of G can also be embedded linklessly.
The following famous example of a nonconstructive proof shows that there exist two irrational numbers a and b such that is a rational number. This proof uses that 2 {\displaystyle {\sqrt {2}}} is irrational (an easy proof is known since Euclid ), but not that 2 2 {\displaystyle {\sqrt {2}}^{\sqrt {2}}} is irrational (this is true, but the proof ...
A non-constructive proof might show a solution exists without specifying either an algorithm to obtain it or a specific bound. Even if the proof is constructive, showing an explicit bounding polynomial and algorithmic details, if the polynomial is not very low-order the algorithm might not be sufficiently efficient in practice.
The above proof is an example of a non-constructive proof disallowed by intuitionists: The proof is non-constructive because it doesn't give specific numbers a {\\displaystyle a} and b {\\displaystyle b} that satisfy the theorem but only two separate possibilities, one of which must work.
(which holds, for example, for n = 5 and r = 4), there must exist a coloring in which there are no monochromatic r-subgraphs. [a] By definition of the Ramsey number, this implies that R(r, r) must be bigger than n. In particular, R(r, r) must grow at least exponentially with r. A weakness of this argument is that it is entirely nonconstructive.
From the other direction, there has been considerable clarification of what constructive mathematics is—without the emergence of a 'master theory'. For example, according to Errett Bishop's definitions, the continuity of a function such as sin(x) should be proved as a constructive bound on the modulus of continuity, meaning that the existential content of the assertion of continuity is a ...
Such a proof is again a refutation by contradiction. A typical example is the proof of the proposition "there is no smallest positive rational number": assume there is a smallest positive rational number q and derive a contradiction by observing that q / 2 is even smaller than q and still positive.
Hilbert's proof is highly non-constructive: it proceeds by induction on the number of variables, and, at each induction step uses the non-constructive proof for one variable less. Introduced more than eighty years later, Gröbner bases allow a direct proof that is as constructive as possible: Gröbner bases produce an algorithm for testing ...