How statement and proof provenance work
The first chip identifies the source of the statement or construction; the second identifies the source of its local proof or verification.
- Literature-sourced: the exact statement appears in a cited source; only wording and notation differ.
- AI-adapted: a semantically identical restatement of literature-sourced material, modulo indexing, notation, and boundary cases adopted by the library.
- AI-generated: a genuinely novel statement formulated by AI, with no source for the claim itself.
These labels describe origin, not correctness: citations and verification chips remain separate evidence.
Vandermonde's identity checked at , , , both sides equal to
Example
Take , and in Vandermonde's identity . The left-hand side is , and the right-hand side is
The same identity at , still with and , exercises the boundary convention: three of the six terms vanish because their coefficients are , and both sides come to .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: and , disjoint with , and ; and the factorials , , , , (The factorial and the falling factorial , defined by recursion in ).
Vandermonde: , proved by partitioning according to , the block with value being in bijection with (Vandermonde's identity , The sum rule: a finite disjoint union is finite with and , and a sum over a finite index set splits along a partition, The product rule: , and ).
for ( for ; hence , the quotient is a natural number, and ), cancellation by a nonzero natural (Cancellation for multiplication by a nonzero factor), and , , for (The set of -element subsets and the binomial coefficient ).
Finite sums in (Finite sums and finite products of natural numbers, and in ).
Verification
The coefficients needed, all from [L2]. gives , so and . Similarly gives ; and , , by symmetry, . Also gives , so .
The case . The four terms of the sum, indexed by , are , , and ; their sum is , equal to .
The case , where the boundary convention does the work. The sum runs over and its terms are , , , , and , the vanishing ones being those with or . The total is .
The partition behind one block. The term with in step 2.1 counts the sets with exactly two elements in ; the bijection of [L1] sends such an to the pair . For instance goes to , and there are such , which is the value computed there. So the identity is a count, not an algebraic accident.
Both instances confirm [L1]: at both sides are , at both sides are , and in the second the terms whose blocks are empty contribute exactly as the identity's lack of a range restriction requires.
Remarks
- Why a case with vanishing terms is included. The identity is stated for all , , with no side condition, and that is only correct because out-of-range binomial coefficients are rather than undefined. Checking a case where three terms vanish is checking exactly that clause.
Depends on
- Vandermonde's identity $\binom{m+n}{k} = \sum_{i<k+1}\binom{m}{i}\binom{n}{k-i}$
- The set $[A]^{k}$ of $k$-element subsets and the binomial coefficient $\binom{n}{k} := \lvert [n]^{k}\rvert$
- $\binom{n}{k}\,k!\,(n-k)! = n!$ for $k \le n$; hence $\binom{n}{k}\,k! = n^{\underline{k}}$, the quotient $n!/(k!(n-k)!)$ is a natural number, and $\binom{n}{k} = \binom{n}{n-k}$
- The sum rule: a finite disjoint union is finite with $\lvert A \cup B\rvert = \lvert A\rvert + \lvert B\rvert$ and $\lvert\bigcup_{i \in I} A_i\rvert = \sum_{i \in I}\lvert A_i\rvert$, and a sum over a finite index set splits along a partition
- The product rule: $\lvert A \times B\rvert = \lvert A\rvert\,\lvert B\rvert$, and $\big\lvert\prod_{i<m} A_i\big\rvert = \prod_{i<m}\lvert A_i\rvert$
- The factorial $n!$ and the falling factorial $n^{\underline{k}}$, defined by recursion in $\mathbb{N}$
- Cancellation for multiplication by a nonzero factor
- Finite sums and finite products of natural numbers, $\sum_{k<n} a_k$ and $\prod_{k<n} a_k$ in $\mathbb{N}$
Used by
Nothing in the library uses this result yet.
Dependency tree · next 3 levels
Direct dependencies and their dependencies through the next three levels: 72 results over 23 levels. An arrow runs from a result to what uses it, and this result sits at the bottom with a heavier outline. Click the chart to enlarge it.
Sources
- Vandermonde's identity (Wikipedia) (standard reference, not scraped)
- Binomial coefficient (Wikipedia) (standard reference, not scraped)
- Bijective proof (Wikipedia) (standard reference, not scraped)