pigeonhole principle (English, noun)
expansion: pigeonhole principle (countable and uncountable, plural pigeonhole principles)
Senses:
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: The theorem which states that any partition of a finite set of n elements into m (< n) subsets (allowing empty subsets) must include a subset with two or more elements; any of certain reformulations concerning the partition of infinite sets where the cardinality of the unpartitioned set exceeds that of the partition (so there is no one-to-one correspondence).
tags: countable
uncountable
Forms:
form: pigeonhole principles
tags: plural