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The validity of this method can be verified from the usual principle of mathematical induction. Using mathematical induction on the statement P(n) defined as "Q(m) is false for all natural numbers m less than or equal to n", it follows that P(n) holds for all n, which means that Q(n) is false for every natural number n.
Structural induction is a proof method that is used in mathematical logic (e.g., in the proof of Łoś' theorem), computer science, graph theory, and some other mathematical fields. It is a generalization of mathematical induction over natural numbers and can be further generalized to arbitrary Noetherian induction .
The argument above makes the implicit assumption that the set of + horses has the size at least 3, [3] so that the two proper subsets of horses to which the induction assumption is applied would necessarily share a common element. This is not true at the first step of induction, i.e., when + =.
The induction, bounding and least number principles are commonly used in reverse mathematics and second-order arithmetic. For example, I Σ 1 {\displaystyle {\mathsf {I}}\Sigma _{1}} is part of the definition of the subsystem R C A 0 {\displaystyle {\mathsf {RCA}}_{0}} of second-order arithmetic.
For example, the definition of the natural numbers presented here directly implies the principle of mathematical induction for natural numbers: if a property holds of the natural number 0 (or 1), and the property holds of n + 1 whenever it holds of n, then the property holds of all natural numbers (Aczel 1977:742).
For example: In Peano arithmetic, second-order arithmetic and related systems, and indeed in most (not necessarily formal) mathematical treatments of the well-ordering principle, the principle is derived from the principle of mathematical induction, which is itself taken as basic.
Transfinite induction requires proving a base case (used for 0), a successor case (used for those ordinals which have a predecessor), and a limit case (used for ordinals which don't have a predecessor). Transfinite induction is an extension of mathematical induction to well-ordered sets, for example to sets of ordinal numbers or cardinal numbers.
The ninth, final, axiom is a second-order statement of the principle of mathematical induction over the natural numbers, which makes this formulation close to second-order arithmetic. A weaker first-order system is obtained by explicitly adding the addition and multiplication operation symbols and replacing the second-order induction axiom with ...