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Why Read This Book? - Index of

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Example 3.4.2 For any positive integer n,<br />

1 2 + 2 2 + 3 2 +···+n 2 =<br />

3.4 The Principle <strong>of</strong> Mathematical Induction 79<br />

n�<br />

k 2 =<br />

k=1<br />

n(n + 1)(2n + 1)<br />

6<br />

(3.35)<br />

Example 3.4.3 Let A be a given set, and {Bk} n k=1 a family <strong>of</strong> n ≥ 1 sets. Then<br />

A ∪ (B1 ∩ B2 ∩···∩Bn) = (A ∪ B1) ∩ (A ∪ B2) ∩···∩(A ∪ Bn) (3.36)<br />

Example 3.4.4 Suppose there are n ≥ 1 people in a room, and everyone shakes<br />

hands with everyone else exactly once. Then the number <strong>of</strong> handshakes that takes<br />

place is n(n − 1)/2. �<br />

Example 3.4.5 Let G be a connected, acyclic graph on n vertices, where n ≥ 1.<br />

Then G has n − 1 edges. �<br />

Notice that Examples 3.4.1–3.4.5 all make a statement about a finite but<br />

unspecified n number <strong>of</strong> things, and you want to prove that the claim is true for<br />

any n ≥ 1.<br />

You might have found Eq. (3.34) handy if you had been in grammar school<br />

with Carl Friedrich Gauss in the 1780s. Gauss, a very precocious child, showed<br />

amazing mathematical ability at a very early age. A somewhat embellished story<br />

goes that when Gauss was eight years old, it was raining one day during recess,<br />

Internet access was down, and his teacher needed to keep the children in the class<br />

busy for a while. So he told them to add up the first 100 natural numbers without<br />

their calculators. Gauss figured out how to get the result quickly in the following<br />

way. By writing the sum twice, once in reverse order, he added vertically, term<br />

by term:<br />

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +···+ 99 + 100<br />

100 + 99 + 98 + 97 +···+ 2 + 1<br />

101 + 101 + 101 + 101 +···+101 + 101<br />

� �� �<br />

100 terms<br />

Gauss observed that 100 × 101 is twice the desired result, so he quickly reported<br />

the result <strong>of</strong> 5050. If you perform a similar trick replacing 100 with an arbitrary n,<br />

you get Eq. (3.34).<br />

Though Gauss’s technique might seem sufficient as a pro<strong>of</strong>, there is something<br />

a little sloppy about making a claim that involves a “dot dot dot” in it. The PMI is<br />

a theorem derived from the WOP that eliminates this untidiness.<br />

�<br />

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