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Text File  |  1992-12-14  |  1.3 KB  |  33 lines
  1. Newsgroups: sci.math
  2. Path: sparky!uunet!think.com!ames!purdue!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!pop.stat.purdue.edu!hrubin
  3. From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
  4. Subject: Re: Difference between "show" and "prove"
  5. Message-ID: <Bz9GAt.D5y@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
  6. Sender: news@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (USENET News)
  7. Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
  8. References: <Bz7KyK.297@ulowell.ulowell.edu>
  9. Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 17:52:05 GMT
  10. Lines: 21
  11.  
  12. In article <Bz7KyK.297@ulowell.ulowell.edu> cdeloge@cs.ulowell.edu (Carolyn Deloge) writes:
  13. >Hi, I am a CS graduate student and I have a question for the math people.
  14.  
  15. >What is the difference between "show" and "prove"?
  16.  
  17. >I had a homework problem that asked to "show" the solution.  I answered by
  18. >giving an example and some reasoning.  The teaching assistant marked it 
  19. >incorrect, saying that I needed to "prove" it inductively.
  20.  
  21. >Can someone give me his/her definitions on these two words?  I would really
  22. >appreciate it.  Thanks.
  23.  
  24. In mathematics, there is no difference.  Now you might not have to prove
  25. it inductively, but you have to prove it, unless you were specifically
  26. asked to do it inductively.
  27.  
  28. -- 
  29. Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
  30. Phone: (317)494-6054
  31. hrubin@snap.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
  32. {purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
  33.