« first day (1125 days earlier)      last day (3911 days later) » 
00:00 - 16:0016:00 - 00:00

4:00 PM
@Chris'ssis Did you see that I put my sum for the inverse of the binomial coefficients in an old answer?
 
@robjohn no. Where?
@robjohn found it.
hehe, improving my English with youtube.com/watch?v=kZW9budcvx8
:-)
 
user87637
4:18 PM
@Chris'ssis You can improve by joining Eng SE, LOL.
 
@Jasper :D
@Jasper I've never been taught English language at school. All I know I've learned on my own.
 
user87637
@Chris'ssis Ah, very good. They usually teach you the wrong things in school, LOL.
 
@Jasper hehe, you might be right! :-)
 
user87637
@Chris'ssis I notice girls use more smilies. =)
 
@Jasper sure. ;)
 
user87637
4:22 PM
@Chris'ssis Why does your gravatar keep changing?
 
user87637
I now have 900, 100 more to retire, LOL.
 
@Jasper it's a mystery to me the reason for that my gravatar keeps changing.
 
user87637
@Chris'ssis You are a mystery to me.
 
@Jasper but it's OK. I like it that way.
 
user87637
@Chris'ssis I am a mystery too.
 
4:25 PM
@Jasper people that know me say a similar thing to me, but with different words like "are you real?" :-)
 
user87637
@Chris'ssis You are a mystery because all I know is you are Chris's sis.
 
@Jasper the core (the DNA) of the whole life is the mystery. :-)
 
user87637
@Chris'ssis For me, the mystery I need to solve is one big life problem I have. Once I solve it, I can solve all other problems. =)
 
@Jasper hehe, do you refer to that girl you talked to? :-)))))
 
user87637
@Chris'ssis No, I am referring to ... my mental problems.
 
4:34 PM
@Jasper isn't SHE such a "mental problem" ? :-)
 
user87637
@Chris'ssis Haha, nope. I hope there is some girl in the world waiting for me when I am well and ready to live life fully again.
 
@Jasper Ack! You're going to retire at 1k? I shouldn't have upvoted you the other day, then! :P
 
user87637
@anorton I will have more time to answer questions after retiring, LOL.
 
:\
:D
 
$$
\begin{align}
\lim_{n\to\infty}\left(\frac{e-1}{e}\sum_{k=0}^n\left(\frac kn\right)^n\right)^n
&=\lim_{n\to\infty}\left(1-\frac{e-1}{e}\sum_{k=0}^n\left(e^{-k}-\left(1-\frac kn\right)^n\right)\right)^n\tag{1}\\
&=\lim_{n\to\infty}\left(1-\frac{e-1}{e}\sum_{k=0}^n\left(e^{-k}-e^{-k-\frac{k^2}{2n}+O\left(\frac{k^3}{n^2}\right)}\right)\right)^n\tag{2}\\
&=\lim_{n\to\infty}\left(1-\frac{e-1}{e}\sum_{k=0}^\infty e^{-k}\left(\frac{k^2}{2n}+O\left(\frac{k^3}{n^2}\right)\right)\right)^n\tag{3}\\
&=\lim_{n\to\infty}\left(1-\frac1{2n}\frac{e-1}{e}\frac{e(e+1)}{(e-1)^3}+O\left(\frac1{n^2}\right)\ri
The steps are justifiable, I just need to find the simplest justification
 
4:46 PM
@robjohn interesting.
 
That limit is $0.532759465576021$
 
@robjohn true
 
@Chris'ssis I haven't tried any numerical examples, but I hope it matches yours.
 
@robjohn That is what I got
 
@robjohn I think there is a problem at the link between $(2)$ and $(3)$
 
5:01 PM
@Chris'ssis What is it?
 
@robjohn $\displaystyle \lim_{x\to0} \frac{e^x-1}{x}=1$, and there we have $x= -k^2/(2n)$
 
@Chris'ssis yes?
$e^{-k}-e^{-k-\frac{k^2}{2n}}=e^{-k}\left(1-e^{-\frac{k^2}{2n}}\right)\sim e^{-k}\frac{k^2}{2n}$
 
@robjohn yes, this is the point.
 
5:15 PM
@Chris'ssis That is what I have, so I don't see what is wrong.
 
@robjohn no, it's not wrong, but some justifications are needed.
 
@Chris'ssis yes, that is what I said.
 
@robjohn very short this approach. I didn't think things would work so fast. (sure, without justification)
@robjohn the main idea is damn clever, and I really like it! If it were nicely justified the proof would definitely be my favourite one. :-)
 
@Chris'ssis I will work on the justification
@Chris'ssis Do you have another proof?
 
@robjohn at the moment, no, but I have some ideas.
 
5:31 PM
@AlecTeal that's pretty cool dude
 
@robjohn Nice stuff! Would've taken me substantially longer to figure it out
 
5:46 PM
@robjohn I'll try to finish all by squeeze theorem.
 
6:01 PM
How do I collect the terms for this?
$$y^2-4x^2y^2-2y^4-x^2=x+y$$
 
@robjohn at any rate, I'm going to firstly compute the inner summation by squeeze theorem and then I'll attend this limit (there is some work). I prepare some tea, and then I begin the work. (there is some effort to put there)
 
6:28 PM
@Chris'ssis I've added the big-O errors to the equations above.
It is important that the big-O error in $(2)$ is negative
That means that the terms won't blow up
 
@robjohn that's right! Yeah, there is no risk to see the terms blowing up. That completes the proof.
Great!
@robjohn how would you consider it on a difficulty scale?
 
@Chris'ssis It is hard to know how to estimate that, since it depends on seeing the right thing. Since I saw how to do it, the rest was not difficult at all. I know that trying to search for the right approach can be difficult.
 
@robjohn I totally agree with you.
 
However, I was sort of lead to the right approach by knowing that what we were looking for was approximately $\sum e^{-k}=\frac e{e-1}$
 
@robjohn I think we might avoid that part. Actually, I'll try to do it in my proof. (in a way it is similar to yours but still different)
@robjohn anyway, you should change nothing to your proof! Let it the way it is! It's perfect!
 
6:39 PM
@Chris'ssis But that is the whole point. $\left(1-\frac kn\right)^n\sim e^{-k}$ and then summing that.
keeping track of the error to that approximation.
 
@robjohn there was something I understood wrongly. Forget what I wrote above.
@robjohn I wanted to emphasize that in your first line, in the right side, after the equal sign, the use of $e^{-k}$ that is under the summation can be avoided. This is less important! The proof is nice the way it is.
 
For $n=10000000$, I get $0.532759488631699717$
Close to $0.532759465576021$
 
7:08 PM
Yeah, this what I got too.
 
7:29 PM
@Jasper are you close to retiring?
 
@robjohn So when will you start making and selling the perfect pizza cutters?
 
@DanielRust :-) I just thought it was worth pointing out that all the cuts are the same shape and size
 
@robjohn haha yes, it's a shame it's dependent on the radius of the disc.
 
All thanks to the fact that the arc of one sixth of the circumference has a distance of one radius from tip to tip.
 
user87637
@robjohn About 100 more points, LOL.
 
7:34 PM
@Jasper why are you retiring?
 
@Jasper not from MSE, I thought you were talking like OldJohn kind of retirement.
 
user87637
@DanielRust For fun. Well, I will decide what to do when I reach 1k.
 
@DanielRust he deletes his account periodically.
 
user87637
@robjohn Oh no, I am definitely not Old John. I need to get well, and then I need to work for many more years before retiring.
 
7:36 PM
@Jasper Ah, I didn't think you were old enough to retire.
 
user87637
@robjohn Yes. However, there is a possibility that I might never get well. I will figure out what to do when that happens.
 
1k rep in 23 days isn't bad tbh
 
user87637
@DanielRust Well, I already deleted my 20k account, so anything is possible.
 
@Jasper very true
 
@Jasper Ack, I didn't know you were not well. I'm sorry.
 
user87637
7:39 PM
@robjohn Well, I think I mentioned before I have OCD and PTSD to cut the long story short, and I have not been working for a long time.
 
@Jasper I must not have been around. Sorry.
 
user87637
@robjohn That is actually what I mean whenever I say I am crazy.
 
user87637
It's not a secret anymore, I don't mind sharing in this chat room. The guys in the Eng room know about it too.
 
@Jasper I was trying not to pry, in case you didn't feel that way.
 
user87637
@robjohn Sharing a little bit here and there helps me feel a bit better.
 
7:46 PM
@Jasper That's good, but not everyone likes to share.
 
user87637
@robjohn Yes, I still have other secrets!
 
@Jasper I'm sure everybody does.
 
user87637
@robjohn But you can be assured I did not kill anyone, LOL.
 
@Jasper Can I? If you did, I don't think you'd tell...
 
it's a triple bluff
 
user87637
7:48 PM
@robjohn Ouch! (I learnt that from you)
 
@Jasper >8(
 
user87637
@DanielRust Wow, I learnt another new phrase today.
 
@Jasper haha
youtube.com/watch?v=8GMpVX__0QQ I wonder if there's any interesting maths behind these
 
8:23 PM
would anyone be aware of the well ordering principle?
 
I know a little
 
8:38 PM
was wondering if proofs for well ordering principle require a base case to be proved?
 
It depends on what framework you've used to define the natural numbers.
In Peano arithmetic it's usually proved with induction (in fact I think induction is necessary) in which case you'd need a base case.
 
9:44 PM
Chimichanga!
 
@Peter: You still alive?
 
@TedShifrin What would I not be?
 
8 consecutive hours ...
 
@TedShifrin Ah! I can take a beating.
Plus, the last course was simply amazing.
I was ecstatic the whole time. OK, not the whole time, but rather the last hours.
 
Awww ... Cool. Which was that?
 
9:47 PM
@TedShifrin Sequences and series.7
 
Oh, fab.
 
@TedShifrin "We" proved that $(z,w)\mapsto zw$ and $z\mapsto z^{-1}$ are not uniformly continuous.
For example.
 
I don't know too manyof my students to be "ecstatic"!
 
But with a very tight proof.
 
Depends on domain :)
 
9:49 PM
@TedShifrin Sure. On their maximal domain.
 
Ok. Good exercise. :)
 
Indeed, the proof we used shows that $zw$ uniformly continuous iff the domain is bounded, and $z^{-1}$ is uniformly continuous in any domain bounded away from the origin.
 
Indeed, yes :)
 
We obtained $$\delta(a,\varepsilon)=\frac{|a|^2\varepsilon}{1+|a|\varepsilon}$$ and $$\delta(\varepsilon,a,b)=\frac{\varepsilon}{\rho+\sqrt{\varepsilon+\rho^2}}\\\rho‌​=\frac{|a|+|b|}2$$
Dr. Fava carefully proved that equality is attained, whence that is the maximal $\delta$.
 
Cool ... Let's see what you students can do :)
 
9:54 PM
@TedShifrin In particular the formulas show that for small $|a|$, $$\delta(a,\epsilon) \approx |a|^2\epsilon$$ and for large $|a|$ or $|b|$ $$\delta(\epsilon,a,b)\approx \frac{\epsilon}{|a|+|b|}$$
@TedShifrin =D We won't have exams. I foresee tons of work!
 
I go through similar arguments trying to prove max/min on noncompact domains.
 
"I'm too old to cope with exams."
@TedShifrin I love analysis done right things like this.
 
No exams? Doesn't he know they'll get their homework solved by people here?
I'll never give another takehome as long as I live.
 
@TedShifrin Oh, BURN! =O
@TedShifrin I think students have honor.
I hope they do.
I think I do have.
 
You're naive and wrong.
 
9:57 PM
@TedShifrin I guess you're right.
 
You have, yes. Because you are already a scholar. :)
 
@TedShifrin What would that entitle?
 
Between wikipedia and here, cheating s out of control. And it makes me furious how many prof types write out detailed solutions like an answer book.
What entitle? :)
 
@TedShifrin OK, what does that mean?
@TedShifrin You mean here in MSE?
 
I mean you are a serious math mind trying to learn. But you too give lots of solutions to other fols' homework.
Folks'
Yes, I mean here.
And I've bitched on meta and have almost given up.
 
10:02 PM
@TedShifrin Ah. Well, I sometimes try to just give hints, but then the person is all over the place asking and asking and asking more, and I just give up.
But you're right.
 
My fury comes from times where I give hints and someone else has to show off and post a complete solution — sometimes wrong :)
 
@TedShifrin Oh, yes. I think we've never answered the same question, though. =)
 
I try to treat this like office hours, and I do not do my students' homework for them. :)
No, but I've seen plenty of your answers :)
 
@TedShifrin Oh, that is a nice way to look at it.
It also means you're the real deal, so to speak.
 
I'm just saying Mariano ought to let his colleague know what's up in the modern day.
 
10:05 PM
@TedShifrin Ah?
Oh.
 
I've recognized a few of our students on here for sure ...
 
Well, Dr. Fava is a retired professor. I respect that he is still giving lessons, and I respect his way to give his class. All that makes it unthinkable to cheat and whatnot. I would pity anyone who did otherwise.
@TedShifrin Heh, and what happened next?
 
I wish everyone had integrity and it were all about learning. Time for me to retire :)
I've kept mum. But if they're in my class next semester, I'll make some explicit statements about cheating. I already told someone in my multivariable class that "getting inspiration" from Wiki is cheating.
I'm glad you're excited to learn from this master, btw :)
 
@TedShifrin Thanks.
@TedShifrin How can that happen? What do you mean?
 
How can what happen?
 
10:15 PM
@TedShifrin In what context would reading Wikipedia qualify as cheating?
 
Because what was on Wiki ended up pretty much verbatim on the paper. Just like copying out of a book. This is academic dishonesty.
 
@TedShifrin Oh, drats. A homework paper?
 
Yes.
 
I also had a guy 5 years ago who got an illicit copy of the solutions manual and copied from it.
Funny ... 100 on homework and 35 on tests.
 
10:18 PM
@TedShifrin HAHA; no need to be Sherlock to know something isn't adding up.
@TedShifrin So, did he get suspended or something?
 
No, I should have gone after him, but he was so weak I didn't bother. I was wrong.
 
@TedShifrin "...he was so weak..."? Wrong in what?
 
Not to pursue academic dishonesty proceedings.
 
@TedShifrin Oh, right. You mean he was math-wise weak?
 
It makes me particularly angry when my students/advisees think I'm an idiot.
 
10:22 PM
@TedShifrin IMO, it is not you they are messing with, but themselves.
 
Yes ... Trying to go to grad school in applied math with an anemic record.
OK, dinnertime. For you too soon!
 
@TedShifrin Heh, I wouldn't want to cross swords with you, Ted. =)
 
Ha ha. You sure? :)
Might be fun ... :D
 
@TedShifrin For the time being!
Might be like arguing about Set Theory with Asaf.
 
Oh god ... Not that.
 
10:24 PM
@TedShifrin LAWL.
 
See ya later.
 
@TedShifrin Bye byes.
 
@TedShifrin It is VERY difficult to do anything about academic dishonesty here. The standard of proof is very high: beyond a reasonable doubt. We "catch" many more people than we end up punishing.
 
In fact, I actually want to alter that statement. The standard of proof seems to be even higher than what I said. It is more like beyond ANY doubt. Even if a TA saw a student copy from another student during an exam and the two answers had an uncanny similarity, there would still be a good chance the student would not be disciplined. They really want you to have pictures or video of the students cheating.
 
10:33 PM
@KevinDriscoll Really? Puff.
 
Indeed @PeterTamaroff I believe strongly in the idea of letting the guilty go free so that the innocent go unpunished, but even to my standards it is ridiculous.
 
@KevinDriscoll Right.
 
One of the few times I know that a student was convicted of academic dishonesty was when he turned in his test, which had already been graded, for a regrade. His claim was that some of his work was overlooked by the grader. But we scan ALL the tests after we grade them and we found that he had, after the fact, altered his exam to show more work than what he had actually done
 
@KevinDriscoll Woah.
It is quite cool that you scan them, it is sad that is necessary to avoid such things as those.
 
@PeterTamaroff It is an unfortunate necessity. I just don't understand how these people think that they're going to be competent engineers if they have to cheat on an introductory physics course.
In this case, I would actually be in favor of making the penalties for academic dishonesty lighter. The reason the standard of proof is so unbelievably high is that a single conviction is incredibly devastating. Your dishonesty is marked on your transcript and I believe you lose a letter grade in the course. You also are put on some kind of probation where you lack certain privileges.
So the worst offenders get convicted but, because the penalty is so harsh the borderline cases go largely unpunished. No one wants to significantly harm the career prospects of a 20 year old because they plagiarized an answer.
 
10:44 PM
@KevinDriscoll Oh. I was told by a professor that a guy was suspended for 4 years (or 2?) from all academical activities for cheating. Dunno if it was a "scary story" just we didn't cheat with him. But he was a cool guy.
@AlexanderGruber LOL on "It's number theory."
 
@PeterTamaroff If you are convicted multiple times you can be dismissed from Georgia Tech. I don't know anyone that has had that happen.
 
@PeterTamaroff hahahaha. i miss jonas.
 
@AlexanderGruber Me too. I have asked him to return.
Failed terribly.
 
if i ever catch a student cheating, i make him redo the quiz and every problem in the entire chapter. like catching your kid smoking and making him smoke the entire pack.
 
Lots of folks seem to leave. I don't really understand why. Lots of disagreements about things like what the purpose of the site is or how to treat newcomers, bad questions, etc
@AlexanderGruber I would prefer that as a first offense kind of penalty. it is temporarily annoying so that it deters cheating, but not a lifetime punishment. That way we could lower the standard of proof becuase it would be okay if 1 out of every 1000 people punished were actually innocent
 
10:48 PM
@KevinDriscoll this also greatly lowers the likelihood that they will cheat again, since most students cheat because they don't know shit, and feel that they are hopelessly behind in the course. this fixes that.
 
Somehow I don't think my administration is going to go for this more punitive (at least in the short term) kind of deal
 
@AlexanderGruber imgur.com/P3B81 The mug-cake / number theory thing reminded me of this.
 
@PeterTamaroff those are awesome
 
@AlexanderGruber Have you studied NT?
 
@PeterTamaroff i did a couple courses yeah
but nothing heavy, a 4th year undergraduate level course and a first year graduate computational number theory thing
(and grad crypto if you count that)
 
10:57 PM
@AlexanderGruber Ooh, fancy.
 
i don't feel like i know very much about it yet
it's neat though
 
I am thinking about reading finishing Landau's book. It is quite amazing.
 
i have that
it's great
 
hey guys
 
user87637
@PeterTamaroff Which book?
 
11:09 PM
"Elementary Number Theory".
 
if there is a statement P(n) where n is a set of natural numbers and I decide to prove P(n) is doing the following sufficient to prove its correctness?
 
@AbdulRahman Let's see.
 
suppose a set C that refutes the statmement
 
by WOP there has to be a minimum value, lets call that m, belonging to C that refutes P(n)
and then I show that if P(m)->P(m-a)
 
11:12 PM
@AbdulRahman Well, first you have to show $C$ is nonempty.
 
where a > 0
 
You cannot assert that $C$ has a minimal element of it is empty.
 
hence i contradict that m is the minimum value of C as assumed earlier
 
What would be plausible is assuming it was nonempty, using WOP and arriving to a contradiction.
 
and hence C is non-empty
are these steps sufficient to prove P(m)?
 
11:14 PM
@AbdulRahman Could you rewrite things more clearly?
 
user87637
@amWhy Thanks for the comments, I think it is fixed now.
 
sure
@Peter sure
if there is a statement P(n) where n is a set of natural numbers and I decide to prove P(n) is doing the following sufficient to prove its correctness?

1) Suppose P(n) is not true. Then, there has to be a set C that has values of n that refutes P(n)

2) By WOP set C has to have a minimum for which P(n) is false

3)Assume m is the minimum. And then if I prove that (not)P(m)->(not)P(m-a) then I contradict that m is the minimum.

Hence I prove that the statement that C is empty and hence P(n) is true
 
Yes, that looks good. You show that the set $C=\{n:\neg P(n)\}$ must be empty. One can just avoid a "double negation" so to speak. =)
 
yes i just have a question regarding this template
the above
do we have to prove some sort of a base for the above template to work?
 
That is, let $C$ as before, and assume for the sake of contradiction that $C\neq \varnothing$. By WOP, blah blah, contradiction, whence $C=\varnothing$ so $P(n)$ is true for all $n$.
 
11:22 PM
I will frame my question more clearly
 
@AbdulRahman I am guessing you think induction should hop in somewhere. Why do you think that?
 
yeah will try to put down clearly what I am thinking
 
You're kinda reusing the "usual" proof that WOP iff POI (principle of induction) in my opinion. Do you know how that goes?
 
@AbdulRahman I don't see the need to prove any kind of 'base case.' The argument seems valid deductively.
also @PeterTamaroff it seems that mathematics folk try and avoid things like double negative and such which is interesting to me because I've studied only formal logic where there seems ot be a very 'anyhting goes' kind of attitude
 
@Jasper Oh, sorry (missed your comment earlier)...let me go back and delete no-longer-relevant comments!
HELLO, @Jasper! Good to see you back! $\ddot\smile$
 
11:29 PM
I guess I dont know how to express this formally but here is what I am thinking

Suppose in the template we assume m is the minimum. and show that P(m)->P(m-a) which contradicts that m is not the minimum. but then if we let ourselves fall through, we'd reach P(base) and if P(base) refutes the claim then we have a minimum value in C that refutes the claim
i am not sure if I said that clearly
 
@amWhy You're the logician. Do yer jeb.
 
@Peter/@Kevin. what do you guys think?
 
any bored chatters care to help with an inverse function homework problem?
 
@AbdulRahman As I said the usual way is the following; let $P(n)$ be some property of $n$, and define the set $C=\{n:\neg P(n)\}$. Assuming $C\neq\varnothing$ we get $m=\min C$. If we can show there exists $m'$ with $m'<m$ we obtain this is impossible, which shows that $C$ cannot be nonempty, whence $C$ is empty and $P(n)$ is true for all $n$.
 
@AbdulRahman Haven't you already proved that p(base) refutes the claim, in that it implies P(m) and thus, by assumption, it refutes the claaim
 
11:40 PM
@LitheOhm Ah?
 
f(x) = x-6 over x+6, find f^-1 of x.
These throw me off.
 
$$\frac{x-6}{x+6}$$
 
yes.
 
Star by writing that as $$a+\frac{b}{x+6}$$
Tell me when you're done.
 
@Peter. Can you please write the last bit you wrote without that syntax. The syntax is making it hard for me to see what is written.
 
11:44 PM
@AbdulRahman Oh, drats. You don't have chatJAX.
Use this Same to you @LitheOhm
 
x over x+6, minus 6 over x+6, correct?
 
@LitheOhm $a$ shouldn't depend on $x$.
It should be a constant.
Hint: $$\frac{x-6}{x+6}=\frac{x+6-6-6}{x+6}$$
 
@PeterTamaroff Curse of knowledge. I knew implicitly that by 'a' you meant a pure number and now I realize that it isn't actually clear
 
I thought there was a rule against migrating garbage
 
got chatjax, I misunderstood due to the syntax
 
11:47 PM
@robjohn There should be
 
@robjohn What a fucked up thing to do.
 
@LitheOhm which syntax?
 
@robjohn means the LaTeX
 
@KevinDriscoll Ah... without ChatJax, this room can get kind of cryptic at times.
 
@robjohn Made dramatic comment.
 
11:48 PM
@PeterTamaroff Oh wow you have come up with a way to solve for $y = f(x)$ that I had not even considered
 
I don't understand where the extra two "-6" in the numerator come from.
 
@LitheOhm $+6-6=0$, right?
 
Reading the MathOverflow post it appears that the question may have been edited by the OP into meaningless stuff DURING the migration vote so people thought they wer emigrating an actual question
 
@KevinDriscoll In general, if $$f(x)=\frac{ax+b}{cx+d}$$, then $$f^{-1}(x)=\frac{1}{ad-cb}\frac{dx-b}{-cx+a}$$
 
yes, so that's outside of the f(x) graph's domain
 
11:50 PM
Hint Matrices.
 
@Peter.

what I am not getting is that what is wrong with the way that I am thinking. I mean what if we just fall through and reach the base and if the base happens to refute P(n) then we have a minimum element of C
it can't go minimum then that
 
@LitheOhm I don't see what's the problem with it, you're not evaluating at $x=-6$, just adding $0$.
 
@LitheOhm All Peter is doing is saying htat you can take your expression and add 0 and still get the same thing. Instead he is suggestively adding 6 and subtracting 6
 
x+6-6-6 is adding 0?
 
@LitheOhm I am writing $x+(6-6)-6=x-6$.
 
11:52 PM
ah, nvm, I follow. From x-6 that is adding zero
my apologies
 
@LitheOhm x - 6 +0 = x - 6 + 6 - 6
 
got it
 
@AbdulRahman I just don't think it is necessary. By assumption m is the minimum element such that P(m) is false. However we can show that ~P(m) - > ~P(m-a) thus there is some other element, m-a such that P(m-a) is also false and $m-a<m$. This is a contradiction and so the negation of the assumption follows, there is no such minimum element.
@AbdulRahman We could continue and find that ~P(m-a) -> ~P(m-a-b) so there is yet another smaller element for which the statement is false
 
@Kevin but then if we prove that P(1) negates the claim then we have a minimum element right there
@Kevin yeah but this will eventually stop at some sort of P(base)
 
@Abdul If such an m exists it would stop eventually, but you are proving precisely that no such element exists!
That is, if P(1) refutes the claim, then P(1) is a counter example which is the opposite of what you were trying to show, wasn't it? Originally you asked about proving that P(n) @AbdulRahman
 
11:59 PM
@Kevin my original question was more like if the template that I gave is sufficient to show P(n)
*to prove P(n)
 
@PeterTamaroff what is the purpose of adding +6 and -6 to the equation?
 
00:00 - 16:0016:00 - 00:00

« first day (1125 days earlier)      last day (3911 days later) »