The first known use of mathematical induction occurs in the Italian scientist Francesco Maurolico in 1575. In the seventeenth both Pierre de Fermat and Blaise Pascal used the technique, Fermat calling it the “method of infinite descent.” In 1883 Augustus De Morgan (best known for De Morgan’s laws) described the process carefully and gave it the name mathematical induction.
To visualize the idea of mathematical induction, imagine an infinite collection of dominoes positioned one behind the other in such a way that if any given domino falls backward, it makes the one behind if fall back ward also. (See Figure 4.2.3) Then imagine that the firs domino falls backward. What happens? … They all fall down!