Tag Archives: idempotent

u-tube

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Brent

[This is the eighth in a series of posts on the decadic numbers (previous posts: A curiosity, An invitation to a funny number system, What does "close to" mean?, The decadic metric, Infinite decadic numbers, More fun with infinite decadic … Continue reading →

Posted in computation, convergence, infinity, iteration, modular arithmetic, number theory, programming | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

A self-square number

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Brent

[This is the seventh in a series of posts on the decadic numbers (previous posts: A curiosity, An invitation to a funny number system, What does “close to” mean?, The decadic metric, Infinite decadic numbers, More fun with infinite decadic … Continue reading →

Posted in arithmetic, infinity, iteration, modular arithmetic, proof | Tagged , , , | 12 Comments

An invitation to a funny number system

Posted on September 17, 2011 by Brent

Consider the equation Solving this equation is no sweat, right? Let’s do it. First, we subtract from both sides: Now we can factor an out of the left side: Now, if the product of two things is zero, one of … Continue reading →

Posted in arithmetic, number theory | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Idempotent endofunctions

Posted on April 17, 2009 by Brent

Via Topological Musings comes another neat little counting problem. A function is idempotent if applying it twice gives the same result as applying it once: that is, for any input x. Endofunction is just a fancy way of talking about … Continue reading →

Posted in challenges, counting | Tagged , , | 8 Comments