Mathematical induction is as follows. Suppose you want to prove some property holds for all x, where x is a member of some sequence, e.g., the natural numbers. Then prove Then by repreatedly applying the second result, you have shown by induction that it holds for all elements.

Scientific induction, a part of the scientific method, is a looser version of this. It says that if you (even better, others as well) try an experiment a bunch of times under the same conditions and get the same result, that result is likely to be a solid 'fact' upon which you can build theories and reason about other experiments. The more times you and others try it, the more confidence you build.

Your procedure above is more akin to scientific induction than mathematical induction. Which is fine, but it isn't really a formal method in that you are not proving anything, just building evidence that code seems to work.

-Mark

In reply to Re: Theorem proving and Unit testing by kvale
in thread Theorem proving and Unit testing by stvn

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.