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5: Induction

  • Page ID
    48252
    • Eric Lehman, F. Thomson Leighton, & Alberty R. Meyer
    • Google and Massachusetts Institute of Technology via MIT OpenCourseWare

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    Induction is a powerful method for showing a property is true for all nonnegative integers. Induction plays a central role in discrete mathematics and computer science. In fact, its use is a defining characteristic of discrete—as opposed to continuous—mathematics. This chapter introduces two versions of induction, Ordinary and Strong, and explains why they work and how to use them in proofs. It also introduces the Invariant Principle, which is a version of induction specially adapted for reasoning about step-by-step processes.


    This page titled 5: Induction is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Eric Lehman, F. Thomson Leighton, & Alberty R. Meyer (MIT OpenCourseWare) .

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