Making sense of experimental mathematics (Q2564024)

Authors' conclusion: Results discovered experimentally will, in general, lack some of the rigor associated with mathematics, but will provide general insights into mathematical problems to guide further exploration, either experimental or traditional. Conjectures experimentally verified will give us more confidence in our direction, even when strongly held beliefs elude proof. One can hope to produce an intuitive view of mathematics that can be transferred in concrete examples and analysis, as opposed to the current system where intuitions can be transmitted only from person to person. If the mathematical community as a whole were less splintered, we would probably remove the word ``codification'' from the definition. But there are real communication problems between fields. Experimental investigators must make every effort to organize their insights and present their data in a manner that will be as widely accessible as possible.