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Section 1.1
The Nature of Mathematical
Reasoning
Learning Objectives
Identify two types of reasoning.
Use inductive reasoning to form conjectures.
Find a counterexample to disprove a
conjecture.
Explain the difference between inductive and
deductive reasoning.
Use deductive reasoning to prove a conjecture.
Reasoning is the process of logical
thinking.
Two Types
of
Reasoning
Inductive Deductive
Reasoning Reasoning
(Induction) (Deduction)
Inductive Reasoning
The process of reasoning that arrives at a
general conclusion based on the observation of
specific examples.
It involves…
•Looking for patterns
•Making a Conjecture (an educated guess)
EXAMPLE 1 Using Inductive Reasoning to
Find a Pattern
Point(s) 1 2 3 4 5 6
Sections 1 2 4 8 16 ?
Looking at the pattern in the number of sections, we see that a
logical guess for the next number is 32. In fact, the number appears
to be 2 raised to the power of 1 less than the number of points. This
will be our conjecture.
Let’s see on the next slide how we did by checking with six points.
EXAMPLE 6 Making and Testing a
Conjecture
SOLUTION
(a) Inductive reasoning will be helpful in forming a conjecture.
We’ll choose a couple specific numbers at random and
perform the given operations to see what the result is.
Number: 12 5
Multiply by 2: 12 2 24 5 2 10
Add 6: 24 6 30 10 6 16
Divideby 2: 30 2 15 16 2 8
number: 15 12
Subtract the original 3 8 5 3
3 3
Result:
So we might form a conjecture that the result will always be
the number 3. But this doesn’t prove the conjecture, as
we’ve tried only two
of infinitely many possibilities.
EXAMPLE 7 Using Deductive Reasoning to
Prove a Conjecture
SOLUTION
(b) The problem with the inductive approach is that we can’t check
every possible number. Instead, we’ll choose an arbitrary number
and call it x. If we can show that the result is 3 in this case, that will
tell us that this is the result for every number. Remember, we’ll be
doing the exact same operations, just on an arbitrary number x.
Number: x
Multiply by 2: x 2 2x
Add 6: 2x 6 2x 6
Divide by 2: 2x 6
x3
2
Subtract the original
number: x 3 x 3
Result: 3
Now we proved our conjecture for all numbers.
EXAMPLE 8 Using Deductive Reasoning to
Prove a Conjecture
SOLUTION
(a) Inductive reasoning will be helpful in forming a conjecture.
We’ll choose a couple specific numbers at random and
perform the given operations to see what the result is.
Number: 12 50
Add 50: 12 50 62 50 50 100
Multiply by 2: 62 2 124 100 2 200
Subtract the original number:
124 12 112 200 50 150
Result: 112 150
The conjecture is that the final answer is 100 more than the
original number. But this doesn’t prove the conjecture, as
we’ve tried only two of infinitely many possibilities.
EXAMPLE 8 Using Deductive Reasoning to
Prove a Conjecture
SOLUTION
(b) Now we’ll try using deduction. Remember, we’ll be doing the
exact same operations, just on an arbitrary number x.
Number: x
Add 50: x 50
Multiply by 2: 2( x 50) 2 x 100
Subtract the original number: 2x 100 x
Result: x 100
Our conjecture was right: the final answer is always 100 more than
the original number.
EXAMPLE 9 Comparing Inductive and
Deductive Reasoning