How does mathematical induction work?
Thank you.
It's a two step process that is used frequently in number theory. The first step is to prove that a hypothesis is valid for case 0, ad case 1.
The second step is to prove that if a general case n is true, then case n+1 is also true.
This completes the proof, sinc8e if case 0 is true, then case 1 is true. If case 1 is true, then case 2 is true, and so on... ad infinitum.
For more information and history, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_induction