Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
In mathematics, certain kinds of mistaken proof are often exhibited, and sometimes collected, as illustrations of a concept called mathematical fallacy.There is a distinction between a simple mistake and a mathematical fallacy in a proof, in that a mistake in a proof leads to an invalid proof while in the best-known examples of mathematical fallacies there is some element of concealment or ...
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.
G. H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology (1940) He [Russell] said once, after some contact with the Chinese language, that he was horrified to find that the language of Principia Mathematica was an Indo-European one. John Edensor Littlewood, Littlewood's Miscellany (1986) The Principia Mathematica (often abbreviated PM) is a three-volume work on the foundations of mathematics written by ...
The classic proof that the square root of 2 is irrational is a refutation by contradiction. [11] Indeed, we set out to prove the negation ¬ ∃ a, b ∈ . a/b = √ 2 by assuming that there exist natural numbers a and b whose ratio is the square root of two, and derive a contradiction.
In mathematics and logic, the term "uniqueness" refers to the property of being the one and only object satisfying a certain condition. [1] This sort of quantification is known as uniqueness quantification or unique existential quantification, and is often denoted with the symbols "∃!" [2] or "∃ =1". For example, the formal statement
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz claimed that the law of identity, which he expresses as "Everything is what it is", is the first primitive truth of reason which is affirmative, and the law of noncontradiction is the first negative truth (Nouv. Ess. IV, 2, § i), arguing that "the statement that a thing is what it is, is prior to the statement that it ...
The proof that S(k) is true for all k ≥ 12 can then be achieved by induction on k as follows: Base case: Showing that S(k) holds for k = 12 is simple: take three 4-dollar coins. Induction step: Given that S(k) holds for some value of k ≥ 12 (induction hypothesis), prove that S(k + 1) holds, too. Assume S(k) is true for some arbitrary k ≥ 12.
One of the widely used types of impossibility proof is proof by contradiction.In this type of proof, it is shown that if a proposition, such as a solution to a particular class of equations, is assumed to hold, then via deduction two mutually contradictory things can be shown to hold, such as a number being both even and odd or both negative and positive.