INDUCTIVE REASONING

process of reaching a general

conclusion by examining a specific
examples

the conclusion formed is called conjecture

 EXAMPLE 1 Use inductive reasoning to Predict a Number
Use inductive reasoning to predict the next number in
each the following list.

a.) 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, ?

b). 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, ?

Check your progress 1
Use inductive reasoning to predict the next
number in each the following list.

a. ) 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, ?

b.) 2, 5 , 10, 17, 26, ?
 EXAMPLE 2 Use inductive reasoning to Make a Conjecture

• Pick a number. Multiply the number by 8, add 6 to the product, divide the sum
by 2, and subtract 3.
• Original number: 5
• Multiply by 8: 8 x 5 = 40
• Add 6: 40 + 6 = 46
• Divide by 2: 46/2 = 23
• Subtract 3: 23 – 3 = 20 Pick another number and notice what happens
 Check your progress 2
• Consider the following procedure: Pick a number. Multiply the
number by 9, add 15 to the product, divide the sum by 3, and subtract
5.
• Complete the above procedure for several different numbers. Use
inductive reasoning to make a conjecture about the relationship
between the size of the resulting number and the size of the original
number.
• Scientists often use inductive reasoning.
• Galileo Galilei (1564– 1642) used inductive reasoning to discover that
the time required for a pendulum to complete one swing, called the
period of the pendulum, depends on the length of the pendulum.
Galileo did not have a clock, so he measured the periods of
pendulums in “heartbeats.”
The following table shows some results obtained for pendulums of various lengths. For the sake of convenience, a length of 10 inches has been designated as 1 unit.

Example 3. Used inductive reasoning to Solve

Length of Period of
an Application

a. If a pendulum has a length of 49 units, what

is its period.
b. If the length of pendulum is quadrupled,
what happens to its period?

pendulum, in pendulum, in
units heartbeats
1 1
4 2
9 3
16 4
25 5
36 6
 Check your progress 3
A tsunami is a sea wave produced by an underwater earthquake. The
height of the tsunami as it approaches land depends on the velocity of
the tsunami. Use the table at the right and inductive reasoning to
answer each of the following question. Velocity of Height of
tsunami, in feet tsunami, in
a. What happens to the height of a tsunami when per second feet
its velocity is doubled? 6 4
9 9
b. What should be the height of a tsunami if its
12 16
velocity is 30 feet per second? 15 25
18 36
21 49
24 64
Conclusions based on inductive reasoning may be incorrect. As an
illustration, consider the circles shown below. For each circle, all
possible line segments have been drawn to connect each dot on the circle
with all the other dots on the circle.
For each circle, count the number of regions formed by the line segments that connect
the dots on the circle. Your results should agree with the results in the following table.
Number of dots 1 2 3 4 5 6

Maximum number of regions 1 2 4 8 16 ?

• There appears to be a pattern. Each additional dot seems to double the

number of regions. Guess the maximum number of regions you expect for
a circle with six dots.
• Check your guess by counting the maximum number of regions formed by
the line segments that connect six dots on a large circle.
The line segments connecting six dots on a circle yield a
maximum of 31 regions.
Counterexamples
A statement is a true statement provided that it is true in all cases. If you can find one case for
which a statement is not true, called a counterexample, then the statement is a false statement.

Example 4 Find a counterexample

Verify that each of the following statements is a false statement by
finding a counterexample. For all numbers x:
a. b. c.
 Check your progress 4

• Verify that each statements is a false statement by finding a

counterexample.