Discovery
The pigeonhole principle is a simple but powerful concept that is used in tackling combinatorial mathematics problems in a systematic manner. In simple terms, the principle states that if some objects need to be placed in boxes that are lesser in number than the objects, then at least one box will have two objects. The concept was formulated in 1834 by a German mathematician named Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet. In his original publication, Dirichlet used a German word that meant drawer in English (Brualdi, 2008). The word soon changed to pigeonhole that is an open space on a wall ...
