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Mathematics Made Difficult
''Mathematics Made Difficult'' is a book by Carl E. Linderholm that uses advanced mathematical methods to prove results normally shown using elementary proofs. Although the aim is largely satirical, it also shows the non-trivial mathematics behind operations normally considered obvious, such as numbering, counting, and factoring integers. Linderholm discusses these seemingly-obvious ideas using concepts like categories and monoids. As an example, the proof that 2 is a prime number starts: It is easily seen that the only numbers between 0 and 2, including 0 but excluding 2, are 0 and 1. Thus the remainder left by any number on division by 2 is either 0 or 1. Hence the quotient ring ''Z''/2''Z'', where 2''Z'' is the ideal in Z generated by 2, has only the elements and where these are the images of 0 and 1 under the canonical quotient map. Since must be the unit of this ring, every element of this ring except is a unit, and the ring is a field Field may refer to: Expan ...
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Mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics with the major subdisciplines of number theory, algebra, geometry, and analysis, respectively. There is no general consensus among mathematicians about a common definition for their academic discipline. Most mathematical activity involves the discovery of properties of abstract objects and the use of pure reason to prove them. These objects consist of either abstractions from nature orin modern mathematicsentities that are stipulated to have certain properties, called axioms. A ''proof'' consists of a succession of applications of deductive rules to already established results. These results include previously proved theorems, axioms, andin case of abstraction from naturesome basic properties that are considered true starting points of ...
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Quotient Ring
In ring theory, a branch of abstract algebra, a quotient ring, also known as factor ring, difference ring or residue class ring, is a construction quite similar to the quotient group in group theory and to the quotient space in linear algebra. It is a specific example of a quotient, as viewed from the general setting of universal algebra. Starting with a ring and a two-sided ideal in , a new ring, the quotient ring , is constructed, whose elements are the cosets of in subject to special and operations. (Only the fraction slash "/" is used in quotient ring notation, not a horizontal fraction bar.) Quotient rings are distinct from the so-called "quotient field", or field of fractions, of an integral domain as well as from the more general "rings of quotients" obtained by localization. Formal quotient ring construction Given a ring and a two-sided ideal in , we may define an equivalence relation on as follows: : if and only if is in . Using the ideal properties, it is ...
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Mathematics Books
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics with the major subdisciplines of number theory, algebra, geometry, and analysis, respectively. There is no general consensus among mathematicians about a common definition for their academic discipline. Most mathematical activity involves the discovery of properties of abstract objects and the use of pure reason to prove them. These objects consist of either abstractions from nature orin modern mathematicsentities that are stipulated to have certain properties, called axioms. A ''proof'' consists of a succession of applications of deductive rules to already established results. These results include previously proved theorems, axioms, andin case of abstraction from naturesome basic properties that are considered true starting points of t ...
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Field (mathematics)
In mathematics, a field is a set on which addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are defined and behave as the corresponding operations on rational and real numbers do. A field is thus a fundamental algebraic structure which is widely used in algebra, number theory, and many other areas of mathematics. The best known fields are the field of rational numbers, the field of real numbers and the field of complex numbers. Many other fields, such as fields of rational functions, algebraic function fields, algebraic number fields, and ''p''-adic fields are commonly used and studied in mathematics, particularly in number theory and algebraic geometry. Most cryptographic protocols rely on finite fields, i.e., fields with finitely many elements. The relation of two fields is expressed by the notion of a field extension. Galois theory, initiated by Évariste Galois in the 1830s, is devoted to understanding the symmetries of field extensions. Among other results, thi ...
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Unit (mathematics)
In algebra, a unit of a ring (mathematics), ring is an invertible element for the multiplication of the ring. That is, an element of a ring is a unit if there exists in such that vu = uv = 1, where is the multiplicative identity; the element is unique for this property and is called the multiplicative inverse of . The set of units of forms a Group (mathematics), group under multiplication, called the group of units or unit group of . Other notations for the unit group are , , and (from the German term ). Less commonly, the term ''unit'' is sometimes used to refer to the element of the ring, in expressions like ''ring with a unit'' or ''unit ring'', and also unit matrix. Because of this ambiguity, is more commonly called the "unity" or the "identity" of the ring, and the phrases "ring with unity" or a "ring with identity" may be used to emphasize that one is considering a ring instead of a rng (algebra), rng. Examples The multiplicative identity and its additive invers ...
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Quotient Space (topology)
In topology and related areas of mathematics, the quotient space of a topological space under a given equivalence relation is a new topological space constructed by endowing the quotient set of the original topological space with the quotient topology, that is, with the finest topology that makes continuous the canonical projection map (the function that maps points to their equivalence classes). In other words, a subset of a quotient space is open if and only if its preimage under the canonical projection map is open in the original topological space. Intuitively speaking, the points of each equivalence class are or "glued together" for forming a new topological space. For example, identifying the points of a sphere that belong to the same diameter produces the projective plane as a quotient space. Definition Let \left(X, \tau_X\right) be a topological space, and let \,\sim\, be an equivalence relation on X. The quotient set, Y = X / \sim\, is the set of equivalence classes o ...
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Image (mathematics)
In mathematics, the image of a function is the set of all output values it may produce. More generally, evaluating a given function f at each element of a given subset A of its domain produces a set, called the "image of A under (or through) f". Similarly, the inverse image (or preimage) of a given subset B of the codomain of f, is the set of all elements of the domain that map to the members of B. Image and inverse image may also be defined for general binary relations, not just functions. Definition The word "image" is used in three related ways. In these definitions, f : X \to Y is a function from the set X to the set Y. Image of an element If x is a member of X, then the image of x under f, denoted f(x), is the value of f when applied to x. f(x) is alternatively known as the output of f for argument x. Given y, the function f is said to "" or "" if there exists some x in the function's domain such that f(x) = y. Similarly, given a set S, f is said to "" if there exi ...
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Element (mathematics)
In mathematics, an element (or member) of a set is any one of the distinct objects that belong to that set. Sets Writing A = \ means that the elements of the set are the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4. Sets of elements of , for example \, are subsets of . Sets can themselves be elements. For example, consider the set B = \. The elements of are ''not'' 1, 2, 3, and 4. Rather, there are only three elements of , namely the numbers 1 and 2, and the set \. The elements of a set can be anything. For example, C = \ is the set whose elements are the colors , and . Notation and terminology The relation "is an element of", also called set membership, is denoted by the symbol "∈". Writing :x \in A means that "''x'' is an element of ''A''". Equivalent expressions are "''x'' is a member of ''A''", "''x'' belongs to ''A''", "''x'' is in ''A''" and "''x'' lies in ''A''". The expressions "''A'' includes ''x''" and "''A'' contains ''x''" are also used to mea ...
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Ideal (ring Theory)
In ring theory, a branch of abstract algebra, an ideal of a ring is a special subset of its elements. Ideals generalize certain subsets of the integers, such as the even numbers or the multiples of 3. Addition and subtraction of even numbers preserves evenness, and multiplying an even number by any integer (even or odd) results in an even number; these closure and absorption properties are the defining properties of an ideal. An ideal can be used to construct a quotient ring in a way similar to how, in group theory, a normal subgroup can be used to construct a quotient group. Among the integers, the ideals correspond one-for-one with the non-negative integers: in this ring, every ideal is a principal ideal consisting of the multiples of a single non-negative number. However, in other rings, the ideals may not correspond directly to the ring elements, and certain properties of integers, when generalized to rings, attach more naturally to the ideals than to the elements of the ...
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Prime Number
A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways of writing it as a product, or , involve 5 itself. However, 4 is composite because it is a product (2 × 2) in which both numbers are smaller than 4. Primes are central in number theory because of the fundamental theorem of arithmetic: every natural number greater than 1 is either a prime itself or can be factorized as a product of primes that is unique up to their order. The property of being prime is called primality. A simple but slow method of checking the primality of a given number n, called trial division, tests whether n is a multiple of any integer between 2 and \sqrt. Faster algorithms include the Miller–Rabin primality test, which is fast but has a small chance of error, and the AKS primality test, which always pr ...
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Satire
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or exposing the perceived flaws of individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society. A feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasm —"in satire, irony is militant", according to literary critic Northrop Frye— but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. This "militant" irony or sarcasm often professes to approve of (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist wishes to question. Satire is found in many a ...
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Monoid
In abstract algebra, a branch of mathematics, a monoid is a set equipped with an associative binary operation and an identity element. For example, the nonnegative integers with addition form a monoid, the identity element being 0. Monoids are semigroups with identity. Such algebraic structures occur in several branches of mathematics. The functions from a set into itself form a monoid with respect to function composition. More generally, in category theory, the morphisms of an object to itself form a monoid, and, conversely, a monoid may be viewed as a category with a single object. In computer science and computer programming, the set of strings built from a given set of characters is a free monoid. Transition monoids and syntactic monoids are used in describing finite-state machines. Trace monoids and history monoids provide a foundation for process calculi and concurrent computing. In theoretical computer science, the study of monoids is fundamental for automata ...
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