I'm having a hard time remembering/finding the name for a mathematical process. It's part of the process for Collatz Conjecture, where "If you can prove for every number up to 'X', then you only need to prove that the next number falls below 'X' and you can "stop". because you know every number up to 'X' will go down to 1.
I know this process has a name, and the Collatz example is the only way I know to describe it. Does anyone know what that process is called?