The Pigeonhole Principle and Its Surprisingly Powerful Applications

The most powerful tool you’ll ever learn

Kasper Müller
Cantor’s Paradise
10 min readJan 31, 2024

--

Pigeons on a shelf reflecting that the article is about the pigeonhole principle.
Image from Wikimedia Commons

If I had to teach only one tool or mathematical principle to someone, it would have to be what I consider one of the most impressive intellectual power tools of mathematics yet so simple that anyone can understand it — it is called the pigeonhole principle.

--

--

Mathematician, programmer and writer interested in the mysteries of the Universe, fascinated by the human mind, music and things that I don’t understand.