"infinite descent" meaning in English

See infinite descent in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Head templates: {{en-noun|-}} infinite descent (uncountable)
  1. (mathematics) A method of proof by contradiction that is used to prove that a statement must be false for all positive integers. By showing that if it is true for one integer, it must be true for a smaller integer, an infinite number of solutions are found and a contradiction is eventually reached. Tags: uncountable Categories (topical): Mathematics Translations (Translations): äärettömän laskeutumisen menetelmä (Finnish), unendlicher Abstieg [masculine] (German), metoda nieskończonego schodzenia [feminine] (Polish)
    Sense id: en-infinite_descent-en-noun-ZkINKHGZ Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Topics: mathematics, sciences

Download JSON data for infinite descent meaning in English (1.8kB)

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        "(mathematics) A method of proof by contradiction that is used to prove that a statement must be false for all positive integers. By showing that if it is true for one integer, it must be true for a smaller integer, an infinite number of solutions are found and a contradiction is eventually reached."
      ],
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      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "äärettömän laskeutumisen menetelmä"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "unendlicher Abstieg"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "Translations",
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      "word": "äärettömän laskeutumisen menetelmä"
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      "word": "unendlicher Abstieg"
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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