On Wed, Aug 24, 2016 at 4:22 PM, Eugene Salamin via math-fun <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> wrote:
Better yet, can anyone write about the usefulness of such a mathematical object?
Characteristic 2 fields satisfy -1 * -1 = -1 and have lots of applications, but I don't know how they're "bad".
From: James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> To: math-fun <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2016 3:18 PM Subject: [math-fun] Bizarro arithmetic
Has anyone written in an accessible vein about all the bad things that happen when you decree that minus times minus equals minus instead of plus?
I might do this in my September blog post but I'm hoping someone else has beaten me to it.
Jim Propp
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
-- Mike Stay - metaweta@gmail.com http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~mike http://reperiendi.wordpress.com