Many cases of proving something (or following a proof of it) involve making, or imagining making, changes in a symbol array. A standard presentation of the proof of left-cancellation in group theory provides an example. “Left-cancellation” is the claim that for any members \(a\), \(b\), \(c\) of a group with operation \(\cdot\) and identity element \(\mathbf{e}\), if \(a \cdot b = a \cdot c\), then \(b = c\). Here is (the core of) a proof of it: