The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
(c)1998-2002; (c)2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
All other sections in this Literature Study Guide are owned and copyrighted by BookRags, Inc.
In mathematics as well as logic, the word induction means "generalization." In logic, it is a process of reasoning from particular situations or conditions to general ones in order to arrive at a conclusion about other similar situations. This is similar to its use in mathematics. Mathematical induction is the use of a formula to prove and analyze. In both fields, the justification for the usefulness of induction is the assumption that if something is true in a number of observed situations, it must also be true in similar but, as yet, unobserved or unproven situations. The probability that an outcome arrived at through induction is accurate depends, in part, on the number of situations observed that show a particular outcome. In mathematics, the induction principle says that if you can prove every other prediction about a series or equation, then the assumption in question must also be true. One of the simplest examples of induction is the interpretation of opinion polls, in which the answers given by a small percentage of the total population are assumed to be the same answers that would be given by the entire country. If 60 out of 100 people use Brand X laundry detergent to wash their clothes, then by induction it can be assumed that 600,000 out of a million do also. Of course, a poll that samples many more than 100 people and people form different parts of the country and many different income letters would povide a more accurate prediction.