The latest stirrings about a claimed proof of the RH hypothesis prompt the following thoughts from this 'amateur': a) someone (Lakatos?) said "proof is a social process" http://www.math.tau.ac.il/~yahave/talks/3 is relevant b) do we now consider the social process sufficiently quorate on: '4 Colours Suffice' and on Fermat's Last 'Theorem'? c) the finality of a proof was part of the attraction of maths for me "you know when you're done" (at least before the 'social' bit) d) I hear that trainee maths teachers can qualify successfully now ... ... without knowing what the concept of 'proof' is. Call me old-fashioned but ... :-( ! e) there seem to be good steps to computerise the proof process http://metamath.org/ is the most comprehensive approach I've seen Are there others of note? How far 'up' can this process go? Cambridge (UK) is doing something on maths, proof and computers (?) ... don't know what though. f) I look forward to those with the appropriate heavy toolkit getting in there and sorting out the DeBranges forest. Guy