Timeline for Did Euler prove theorems by example?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 20 at 1:50 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Todd Trimble | ||
| Jun 17, 2016 at 8:44 | comment | added | Mikhail Katz | Nice comment to a nice answer. Euler seems to be using the term "induction" in the sense Wallis was using it (and critized for). | |
| Jun 17, 2016 at 8:35 | comment | added | KConrad | Euler once wrote the following, which clearly demonstrates he didn't regard proof by example as a substitute for a real proof: "The kind of knowledge which is supported only by observations and is not yet proved must be carefully distinguished from the truth; it is gained by induction, as we usually say. Yet we have seen cases in which mere induction led to error. Therefore, we should take great care not to accept as true such properties of the numbers which we have discovered by observation and which are supported by induction alone." By "induction" Euler does not mean mathematical induction. | |
| Jun 16, 2016 at 20:00 | history | answered | Franz Lemmermeyer | CC BY-SA 3.0 |