(September 26, 2018 at 9:49 pm)Fireball Wrote: This is a proof demonstrating mathematical induction, and relies on a much more basic understanding of exponentials. (no offense meant) You can't add things like that. If two things are multiplied, the exponents add, but not if those two things are added. You might have been able to get the right answer in this case, but it's for the wrong reason- it's because it is base two, and not a generic answer because of that. Exponents are not too hard for you, I happen to know that you are plenty smart, in my experience. My recommendation is to find an algebra text (say, College Algebra) that is for College Freshmen and re-work through the section on handling exponentials. That same text will have the details of proof by induction, possibly with a less complicated example.
Check out the link to the purplemath page. https://www.purplemath.com/modules/inductn3.htm. I think I solved it in a very similar way to the way Purplemath did.
Exponents should not be too hard for me, but for some reason, I can't wrap my brain around this. Everyone in class seemed to be solving it like I demonstrated above, and I was thinking, "Derp, derp, derp. Exponents are too hard."
