Is it legitimate to define a function in a proof?

Question

I am working on a lemma with proof by mathematical induction. To make my proof easier to parse, I want to define a function - it is likely I will not refer to this function anywhere else in the document.

Is it legitimate to define a function in a proof? Or is there a better approach?

Defining an object that will only be used in the proof is quite common. It's also OK if you plan on using it later on, but in that case you might want to just define it independently. — user347489, Dec 14 '19 at 00:39

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 14 '19 at 00:39

1

Yes, it's totally fine to define a function in a proof.

answered Dec 14 '19 at 00:39

littleO

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Is it legitimate to define a function in a proof?

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