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From: holland@uiucdcs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.math
Subject: Re: Induction help, please?
Message-ID: <28200044@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 7-Oct-84 13:15:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.28200044
Posted: Sun Oct  7 13:15:00 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 9-Oct-84 03:37:10 EDT
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Nf-ID: #R:yale:-526400:uiucdcs:28200044:000:473
Nf-From: uiucdcs!holland    Oct  7 12:15:00 1984

Induction is perhaps one of the hardest "tricks" to conceptualize. It is
probably THE hardest trick to get down on paper.

Try lots of simple inductive proofs. Most books on abstract algebra will
have at least a couple. I think that McLaine/Birkhoff has several.

You can always do induction mechanically, in two steps:

	1. is the hypothesis true when the index variable is 1 (or another
		starting value)?

	2. is the hypothesis true when adding 1 to the index variable?