In 2009, I posted a calculational proof of the handshaking lemma, a well-known elementary result on undirected graphs. I was very pleased about my proof because the amount of guessing involved was very small (especially when compared with conventional proofs). However, one of the steps was too complicated and I did not know how to improve it.
In June, Jeremy Weissmann read my proof and he proposed a different development. His argument was well structured, but it wasn’t as goal-oriented as I’d hoped for.
I found the following problem on K. Rustan M. Leino’s puzzles page:
[Carroll Morgan told me this puzzle.]
Prove that for any positive K, every Kth number in the Fibonacci sequence is a multiple of the Kth number in the Fibonacci sequence.
More formally, for any natural number n, let F(n) denote Fibonacci number n. That is, F(0) = 0, F(1) = 1, and F(n+2) = F(n+1) + F(n).