Soft math

Soft math is characterized by the use of mathematics-oriented computer software, and has been used to collect heuristic or statistical evidence for may conjectures such as the Riemann hypothesis and the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture.

In some ways it may be seen as “applied” rather than pure mathematics which would be based on formal definitions and proofs for all key terms and theorems based on them, even if it isn’t “applied” as such to practical use “out on the farm” as it were.

Much of the “soft math“ we are presented with in abstract algebra or group theory journal articles and so forth has become too abstract, advanced and theoretical with vague definitions leaving behind the formal proofs for the initial simplest concrete results upon which it is based. This is what happened at the monstrous moonshine camp.

Cryptography is a martial art which cannot be practiced properly without the discipline of simple rigorous definitions and hard, step-by-step proofs, and accordingly all mathematical concepts which are employed in the service of strong cryptography must be brought into the jurisdiction of the martial art as such.