How Mathematicians Prove Theorems

This paper analyzes how mathematicians prove the-orems. The analysis is based upon several empiricalsources such as reports of mathematicians and math-ematical proofs by analogy. In order to combine thestrength of traditional automated theorem provers withhuman-like capabilities, the questions arise: Whichproblem solving strategies are appropriate? Which rep-resentations have to be employed? As a result of ouranalysis, the following reasoning strategies are recog-nized: proof planning with partially instantiated meth-ods, structuring of proofs, the transfer of subproofs andof reformulated subproofs. We discuss the represent-ation of a component of these reasoning strategies, aswell as its properties. We find some mechanisms neededfor theorem proving by analogy, that are not providedby previous approaches to analogy. This leads us to acomputational representation of new components andprocedures for automated theorem proving systems.