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yori

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You cannot work backward by assuming the field axioms (which are unfortunately named because they are not axioms at all but properties) to derive the definition o the field operators.

Of course, when we say they are field axioms we mean those properties hold true for the elements of the field. If you see those properties, they talk about distributivity over the elements of the field and additive inverses of the elements also belong to the field, so the distributivity automatically applies to additive inverses too.

After that with a little algebra, "product of additive inverses of two elements is equal to the product of the two elements" comes out as a result (not a definition).

Of course, by "product" we mean whatever * represents. It is not necessarily the multiplication operator we see in numbers.

If we'd chosen some other definition of multiplication, a lot of the "intuitive" properties of multiplication that hold over the natural numbers (such as the distributivity of multiplication over addition and subtraction) would no longer be true over the integers.

This is backward reasoning. The chosen definition of multiplication is not to keep things "intuitive". If you start with the field axioms, the chosen definition of multiplication is pretty much dictated by the axioms. If you choose another definition of multiplication, you would end with contradictions like 1 = 0 and such nonsense! And mathematicians abhor contradictions!

"Product of additive inverses of two elements is equal to the product of the two elements" is dictated by the field axioms in all fields.

Not every arithmetic property needs to be proved from Peano axioms. One can but it is tedious and unnecessary. A much better starting point is the set of field axioms where the distributivity property is already available as an axiom.

The assumptions made in the article are perfectly fine as per field axioms. Granted it would have been nicer if distributivity over addition was used instead of distributivity over subtraction. But it is not a big leap to derive distributivity over substraction from field axioms by distributing multiplication over a positive number and the additive inverse of another positive number.

Wherever you see an assumption made about negative number, just mentally replace it with additive inverse of a positive number and you would be fine.

Like mentioned in another comment on this thread, the assumptions are well known field axioms. They form a good starting point.

And why start with Peano axioms? They seem like a bad starting point because it would take pages upon pages of proof and it won't easily extend to other algebraic structures like rings and fields.

There is no simple way to solve this equation. I had to resort to using the Lambert W function to solve this.

How do you know when to use Lambert W function?

What your parent comment meant was that it is not possible to learn well from typical blog posts like this that try to condense the subject into a 3000 word article. Of course, if you copy-paste the content of a book into a blog post, then parent comment's point no longer applies.

Off-topic question: I see a lot of new posts coming from .cc websites. What is the appeal that .cc provides? Is it that the content is released under Creative Commons? That's not the case here. What kind of messaging or symbolism or underlying meaning one is aiming for when they are going for a .cc domain?

BBC Micro Bot 6 years ago

Example code on the website:

  10 MODE 2
  20 COLOUR RND(7)
  30 PRINT "HELLO WORLD"
  40 GOTO 20
Happy to see "colour" spelled the English way. :-)

Yes, I didn't get the usage of the term "LARP" in this context too. It comes off as rude and condescending to both LARPers and email users. I am not sure the term fits appropriately in this context. All LARPers are aware that they are role playing in a game, not the real world, and they do not pretend otherwise.

Despite the english name of the website, it's a german page, so no use in linking it here I suppose.

No, please do link it here. First, there are many Germans here who would appreciate it. Second, people like me who cannot read German can still auto-translate the page to English and read it.

Are you rendering the LaTeX on server-side or on client-side using JavaScript? I am asking these questions because I find MathJax code in your website:

  <script type="text/plain" cookie-consent="strictly-necessary">
    window.MathJax = {
      tex: {
        inlineMath: [['$', '$'], ['\\(', '\\)']]
      },
      svg: {
        fontCache: 'global'
      }
    };
  </script>
  <script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async
    src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/tex-svg.js">
  </script>
Plasma 5.18 6 years ago

I use XFCE. Are there any good reasons to switch to KDE? Honest question.

[dead] 6 years ago

I provided a cryptographic proof that does not require blockchain.

[dead] 6 years ago

How about this? Write your bug report. Sign the bug report with your private key. Anonymously publish the bug report, the signature and the public key. Later when required, prove that you wrote the bug report by using your private key to sign a new message or a challenge message sent by any challenger.

Here's a good one: https://susam.in/

Stumbled on this when his domain was hijacked accidentally due to an anti-botnet operation and his post about it came on HN (check the "Sinkholed" post). Since then I've subscribed to his blog, read the older posts and enjoyed the newer posts too.

He mostly posts about technology and mathematics. The reason why I got hooked to this blog is that they are mostly about offbeat topics that I wouldn't normally come across on my own. So there is something new to learn from every post. And they are very well written with great attention to detail.

Do you really mean plain old Docker or do you mean Docker Swarm as well?

I think Docker Swarm is necessary in the absence of Kubernetes to ensure that the correct number of replicas are running on your cluster. It would help with automatically spinning up new replicas when a few nodes go down, changing the number of replicas on the fly, etc.

Firefox 72.0 7 years ago

After the recent missteps by Chrome (mangling the display of URLs), I decided to switch to Firefox and DuckDuckGo a few months ago and I was pleasantly surprised at how fast Firefox is these days than what I found it to be 10 years ago.

While I still consider DuckDuckGo to be in the "not bad" category, Firefox is in the "seriously awesome" category now.

If you have been away from Firefox for a while like me, give it another shot. It won't disappoint you for sure.

Thanks for the suggestions. Anyone here has used the Vim equivalents? There are a few choices like slimv, vlime, vim-slime. What's the difference between them? Are they as good as emacs and slime?

Really good choice of examples. Makes sense to someone coming from Java, JavaScript or Python background. I have bookmarked this already and I am going to send this article to my friends and colleagues to show them the power of Lisp macros.

By the way, what kind of development environment should I suggest to others who want to get started with Lisp? Very few, if any, use Emacs. Some use Vim. Most use Visual Studio Code. What kind of development environment would be most suitable to this kind of demographics?