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Does anyone know how to answer this question:

How do I know when a proof is worth learning?

A lot of times I can get by with just an intuition that the statement ought to be true and some knowledge of what the proof uses but without a full understanding of the proof. But that's not something to be done every time. Any advice on knowing when I can or can't skip a proof?

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Proofs are not just about knowing whether something is true or not. Any good proof will reveal techniques that can be applied in other situations even when the assumptions don't quite hold. If you think those techniques might be applicable to your work then you should study the proof. No one else can make this distinction other than you.

Thanks for that reply but I think you've avoided answering the question. Maybe there's no good answer, but I was looking for heuristics to judge ahead of time how valuable the insight from reading a proof is. After all, reading one can be quite a bit of work so ideally I'd never read proofs that aren't insughtful, but which ones those are is hard to judg in advance for me. Maybe not so hard to judge for someon more experienced than me, though.

Look for clues to what other people thought of the proof. Did the paper appear at a prestigious conference, etc? Your opinion will probably be predicted by other peoples' opinions.

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