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Description. The simplest and most common form of mathematical induction infers that a statement involving a natural number n (that is, an integer n ≥ 0 or 1) holds for all values of n. The proof consists of two steps: The base case (or initial case): prove that the statement holds for 0, or 1. The induction step (or inductive step, or step ...
Then P(n) is true for all natural numbers n. For example, we can prove by induction that all positive integers of the form 2n − 1 are odd. Let P(n) represent " 2n − 1 is odd": (i) For n = 1, 2n − 1 = 2 (1) − 1 = 1, and 1 is odd, since it leaves a remainder of 1 when divided by 2. Thus P(1) is true.
For a Chinese white horse paradox, see When a white horse is not a horse. All horses are the same color is a falsidical paradox that arises from a flawed use of mathematical induction to prove the statement All horses are the same color. [1] There is no actual contradiction, as these arguments have a crucial flaw that makes them incorrect.
Structural induction. Structural induction is a proof method that is used in mathematical logic (e.g., in the proof of Łoś' theorem), computer science, graph theory, and some other mathematical fields. It is a generalization of mathematical induction over natural numbers and can be further generalized to arbitrary Noetherian induction.
For the following proof we apply mathematical induction and only well-known rules of arithmetic. Induction basis: For n = 1 the statement is true with equality. Induction hypothesis: Suppose that the AM–GM statement holds for all choices of n non-negative real numbers. Induction step: Consider n + 1 non-negative real numbers x 1, . . . , x n+1, .
The deductive nature of mathematical induction derives from its basis in a non-finite number of cases, in contrast with the finite number of cases involved in an enumerative induction procedure like proof by exhaustion. Both mathematical induction and proof by exhaustion are examples of complete induction. Complete induction is a masked type of ...
In calculus, the general Leibniz rule, [1] named after Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, generalizes the product rule (which is also known as "Leibniz's rule"). It states that if and are n -times differentiable functions, then the product is also n -times differentiable and its n -th derivative is given by where is the binomial coefficient and denotes ...
Transfinite induction requires proving a base case (used for 0), a successor case (used for those ordinals which have a predecessor), and a limit case (used for ordinals which don't have a predecessor). Transfinite induction is an extension of mathematical induction to well-ordered sets, for example to sets of ordinal numbers or cardinal ...