# Mathematical Induction- Basics

Mathematical Induction

Mathematical Induction can be explained with this simple example. Garima goes to a garden which has different varieties of flowers. The color of all the flowers in that garden is yellow. She picks a flower and brings it home. Now if she picks up a rose then what color is it?

Is it too difficult to answer? No, obviously the color of the rose is yellow as every flower in that garden is yellow in color. What did we just do here? We used the concept of logical reasoning to deduce the color of the rose.

Similar to this analysis, in Mathematics the use of concept of mathematical thinking can be applied to reach conclusions. Consider a mathematical example:

i) All the numbers lying on the real number line are known as real numbers.

ii) All the real numbers greater than zero are positive real numbers.

iii) 25 is a real number.

From the above statements we can say that if the first two statements are true then the third one is definitely true.Let’s see what mathematical induction is?

What is Mathematical Induction?

It is the art of proving any statement, theorem or formula which is thought to be true for each and every natural number n.

In mathematics we come across many statements that are generalized in form of n. To check whether that statement is true for all natural numbers we use the concept of mathematical induction.

This concept of induction is generally based on the fall of dominoes concept.

It’s just like all the dominoes will fall one by one if the first one arranged in the queue is pushed. Similar to this in induction we prove that if a statement is true for the first number (n = 1) and then show that it is true for $n$ = $k^{th}$ number then it can be generalized that the given statement is true for every n .

It is important to mention here that a set of N natural numbers is the smallest subset of the set of real numbers R with the given property:

A set S is said to be inductive if 1 is an element of S and x + 1 is also an element of S when it is given that x is an element of S.

Now as N is a subset of inductive set R then it can be concluded that any subset of R that is inductive must consist of N.

Suppose to find out the sum of positive natural numbers we use the formula:

$1 + 2 + 3 … … … n$ = $\frac{n(n+1)}{2}$<

But is the formula valid? To check the validity of such formula, we use mathematical induction. We check the validity for the smallest possible and then continue for higher values and then if it is true for higher we accept the validity for entire n.

Now we have brief knowledge about what mathematical induction is. There is still a lot more to it. To know more log on to www.byjus.com. We promise you will yearn to learn more with Byju’s.

#### Practise This Question

(1+11)(1+12)(1+13)..................(1+1n)=