Mathamatical Induction

[Glitchny]

I need some help understanding mathamatical induction if anyone on here knows how to do Induction please help me out. I have read the pages in my math book multiple times and it doesnt explain anything, just makes it worse. So if anyone knows of a site that will show me a step by step process of how to do induciton id be very greatful.

thanx
glitch

 

[beer]

Well, in a nutshell, you just prove that if something applies to the nth term, and then it applies to the nth+1 term, then it applies for all terms., since, for all terms, there is always going to be one greater (for certain series, etc)

What level math are you at?

 

[gopunk]

sorry, i don't know of a site, but yea what elemental007 said is right.

say you are trying to prove X for some set of cases

so you have a base case, which just shows that X is true for the first of your set of cases
then you have the inductive hypothesis, which is that if X is true for the nth case then it is true for the n+1th case
then you write the inductive step, which is the proof of the inductive hypothesis.

then when you have finished the inductive step, you have shown that since X is true for the first case, and that if X is true for some n case, then it must be true for the n+1th case, then X for your set of cases must be true (since you can just plug in your base case as the n, then the next case must be true, and if that case is true, then the next case, and so on)

 

[Glitchny]

Originally posted by: Elemental007
Well, in a nutshell, you just prove that if something applies to the nth term, and then it applies to the nth+1 term, then it applies for all terms., since, for all terms, there is always going to be one greater (for certain series, etc)

What level math are you at?

thanx, i figure it out about 10min after posting about it, the book my prof uses is so confusing i think it hinders more than helps.

And im taking Discrete Math for comp sci 1