Is it plausible? (Q2249487)

Reasoning from randomness illustrates the power and the essential limitations of a heuristic method, through a methodology of five steps and five conjectures. Reasoning from analogy, the author correlates analogies and metaphors, but mainly focuses at analogy by expansion. A summary together with variants of ``plausible'' concludes this very interesting and certainly worth-reading paper. This is a delightful work presented in a very ``plausible'' way. Three distinct modes of reasoning: from consequence, from randomness and from analogy are presented together with very difficult mathematical problems which are given in a surprising beautiful way. At first the conjecture of Euler that any number of the form \(3+8n\) is the sum of the square and the double of a prime, is considered. Yet, its discussion loads to Fermat's polygonal number theorem, passes through Hempel's paradox and ends up to the Riemann hypothesis!