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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 ...
The concept of proof is formalized in the field of mathematical logic. [ 12] A formal proof is written in a formal language instead of natural language. A formal proof is a sequence of formulas in a formal language, starting with an assumption, and with each subsequent formula a logical consequence of the preceding ones.
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 ...
In mathematics, Euler's identity[ note 1] (also known as Euler's equation) is the equality where. is pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Euler's identity is named after the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler. It is a special case of Euler's formula when evaluated for .
Universal generalization / instantiation. Existential generalization / instantiation. In propositional logic and Boolean algebra, De Morgan's laws, [ 1][ 2][ 3] also known as De Morgan's theorem, [ 4] are a pair of transformation rules that are both valid rules of inference. They are named after Augustus De Morgan, a 19th-century British ...
The resulting identity is one of the most commonly used in mathematics. Among many uses, it gives a simple proof of the AM–GM inequality in two variables. The proof holds in any commutative ring. Conversely, if this identity holds in a ring R for all pairs of elements a and b, then R is commutative. To see this, apply the distributive law to ...
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 ...
Goldbach's conjecture is one of the oldest and best-known unsolved problems in number theory and all of mathematics. It states that every even natural number greater than 2 is the sum of two prime numbers. The conjecture has been shown to hold for all integers less than 4 × 10 18 but remains unproven despite considerable effort.