Difference Algebra
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Difference Algebra
Difference algebra is a branch of mathematics concerned with the study of difference (or functional) equations from the algebraic point of view. Difference algebra is analogous to differential algebra but concerned with difference equations rather than differential equations. As an independent subject it was initiated by Joseph Ritt and his student Richard Cohn. Difference rings, difference fields and difference algebras A ''difference ring'' is a commutative ring R together with a ring endomorphism \sigma\colon R\to R. Often it is assumed that \sigma is injective. When R is a field one speaks of a ''difference field''. A classical example of a difference field is the field K=\mathbb(x) of rational functions with the difference operator \sigma given by \sigma(f(x))=f(x+1). The role of difference rings in difference algebra is similar to the role of commutative rings in commutative algebra and algebraic geometry. A morphism of difference rings is a morphism of rings that commu ...
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Mathematics
Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many areas of mathematics, which include number theory (the study of numbers), algebra (the study of formulas and related structures), geometry (the study of shapes and spaces that contain them), Mathematical analysis, analysis (the study of continuous changes), and set theory (presently used as a foundation for all mathematics). Mathematics involves the description and manipulation of mathematical object, abstract objects that consist of either abstraction (mathematics), abstractions from nature orin modern mathematicspurely abstract entities that are stipulated to have certain properties, called axioms. Mathematics uses pure reason to proof (mathematics), prove properties of objects, a ''proof'' consisting of a succession of applications of in ...
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Functor
In mathematics, specifically category theory, a functor is a Map (mathematics), mapping between Category (mathematics), categories. Functors were first considered in algebraic topology, where algebraic objects (such as the fundamental group) are associated to topological spaces, and maps between these algebraic objects are associated to continuous function, continuous maps between spaces. Nowadays, functors are used throughout modern mathematics to relate various categories. Thus, functors are important in all areas within mathematics to which category theory is applied. The words ''category'' and ''functor'' were borrowed by mathematicians from the philosophers Aristotle and Rudolf Carnap, respectively. The latter used ''functor'' in a Linguistics, linguistic context; see function word. Definition Let ''C'' and ''D'' be category (mathematics), categories. A functor ''F'' from ''C'' to ''D'' is a mapping that * associates each Mathematical object, object X in ''C'' to ...
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Finite Difference
A finite difference is a mathematical expression of the form . Finite differences (or the associated difference quotients) are often used as approximations of derivatives, such as in numerical differentiation. The difference operator, commonly denoted \Delta, is the operator (mathematics), operator that maps a function to the function \Delta[f] defined by \Delta[f](x) = f(x+1)-f(x). A difference equation is a functional equation that involves the finite difference operator in the same way as a differential equation involves derivatives. There are many similarities between difference equations and differential equations. Certain Recurrence relation#Relationship to difference equations narrowly defined, recurrence relations can be written as difference equations by replacing iteration notation with finite differences. In numerical analysis, finite differences are widely used for #Relation with derivatives, approximating derivatives, and the term "finite difference" is often used a ...
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Manin–Mumford Conjecture
In mathematics, the arithmetic of abelian varieties is the study of the number theory of an abelian variety, or a family of abelian varieties. It goes back to the studies of Pierre de Fermat on what are now recognized as elliptic curves; and has become a very substantial area of arithmetic geometry both in terms of results and conjectures. Most of these can be posed for an abelian variety ''A'' over a number field ''K''; or more generally (for global fields or more general finitely-generated rings or fields). Integer points on abelian varieties There is some tension here between concepts: ''integer point'' belongs in a sense to affine geometry, while ''abelian variety'' is inherently defined in projective geometry. The basic results, such as Siegel's theorem on integral points, come from the theory of diophantine approximation. Rational points on abelian varieties The basic result, the Mordell–Weil theorem in Diophantine geometry, says that ''A''(''K''), the group of points on ...
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Pure Mathematics
Pure mathematics is the study of mathematical concepts independently of any application outside mathematics. These concepts may originate in real-world concerns, and the results obtained may later turn out to be useful for practical applications, but pure mathematicians are not primarily motivated by such applications. Instead, the appeal is attributed to the intellectual challenge and aesthetic beauty of working out the logical consequences of basic principles. While pure mathematics has existed as an activity since at least ancient Greece, the concept was elaborated upon around the year 1900, after the introduction of theories with counter-intuitive properties (such as non-Euclidean geometries and Cantor's theory of infinite sets), and the discovery of apparent paradoxes (such as continuous functions that are nowhere differentiable, and Russell's paradox). This introduced the need to renew the concept of mathematical rigor and rewrite all mathematics accordingly, with a ...
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Population Dynamics
Population dynamics is the type of mathematics used to model and study the size and age composition of populations as dynamical systems. Population dynamics is a branch of mathematical biology, and uses mathematical techniques such as differential equations to model behaviour. Population dynamics is also closely related to other mathematical biology fields such as epidemiology, and also uses techniques from evolutionary game theory in its modelling. History Population dynamics has traditionally been the dominant branch of mathematical biology, which has a history of more than 220 years,Malthus, Thomas Robert. An Essay on the Principle of Population: Library of Economics although over the last century the scope of mathematical biology has greatly expanded. The beginning of population dynamics is widely regarded as the work of Malthus, formulated as the Malthusian growth model. According to Malthus, assuming that the conditions (the environment) remain constant ('' ceteris pari ...
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Model Theory
In mathematical logic, model theory is the study of the relationship between theory (mathematical logic), formal theories (a collection of Sentence (mathematical logic), sentences in a formal language expressing statements about a Structure (mathematical logic), mathematical structure), and their Structure (mathematical logic), models (those Structure (mathematical logic), structures in which the statements of the theory hold). The aspects investigated include the number and size of models of a theory, the relationship of different models to each other, and their interaction with the formal language itself. In particular, model theorists also investigate the sets that can be definable set, defined in a model of a theory, and the relationship of such definable sets to each other. As a separate discipline, model theory goes back to Alfred Tarski, who first used the term "Theory of Models" in publication in 1954. Since the 1970s, the subject has been shaped decisively by Saharon Shel ...
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Number Theory
Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic functions. Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects constructed from integers (for example, rational numbers), or defined as generalizations of the integers (for example, algebraic integers). Integers can be considered either in themselves or as solutions to equations (Diophantine geometry). Questions in number theory can often be understood through the study of Complex analysis, analytical objects, such as the Riemann zeta function, that encode properties of the integers, primes or other number-theoretic objects in some fashion (analytic number theory). One may also study real numbers in relation to rational numbers, as for instance how irrational numbers can be approximated by fractions (Diophantine approximation). Number theory is one of the oldest branches of mathematics alongside geometry. One quirk of number theory is ...
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Combinatorics
Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and as an end to obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many applications ranging from logic to statistical physics and from evolutionary biology to computer science. Combinatorics is well known for the breadth of the problems it tackles. Combinatorial problems arise in many areas of pure mathematics, notably in algebra, probability theory, topology, and geometry, as well as in its many application areas. Many combinatorial questions have historically been considered in isolation, giving an ''ad hoc'' solution to a problem arising in some mathematical context. In the later twentieth century, however, powerful and general theoretical methods were developed, making combinatorics into an independent branch of mathematics in its own right. One of the oldest and most accessible parts of combinatorics ...
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Dynamical System
In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a Function (mathematics), function describes the time dependence of a Point (geometry), point in an ambient space, such as in a parametric curve. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, fluid dynamics, the flow of water in a pipe, the Brownian motion, random motion of particles in the air, and population dynamics, the number of fish each springtime in a lake. The most general definition unifies several concepts in mathematics such as ordinary differential equations and ergodic theory by allowing different choices of the space and how time is measured. Time can be measured by integers, by real number, real or complex numbers or can be a more general algebraic object, losing the memory of its physical origin, and the space may be a manifold or simply a Set (mathematics), set, without the need of a Differentiability, smooth space-time structure defined on it. At any given time, ...
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Hilbert's Basis Theorem
In mathematics Hilbert's basis theorem asserts that every ideal (ring theory), ideal of a polynomial ring over a field (mathematics), field has a finite generating set of an ideal, generating set (a finite ''basis'' in Hilbert's terminology). In modern algebra, ring (mathematics), rings whose ideals have this property are called Noetherian rings. Every field, and the ring of integers are Noetherian rings. So, the theorem can be generalized and restated as: ''every polynomial ring over a Noetherian ring is also Noetherian''. The theorem was stated and proved by David Hilbert in 1890 in his seminal article on invariant theory, where he solved several problems on invariants. In this article, he proved also two other fundamental theorems on polynomials, the Nullstellensatz (zero-locus theorem) and the syzygy theorem (theorem on relations). These three theorems were the starting point of the interpretation of algebraic geometry in terms of commutative algebra. In particular, the basis ...
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Ideal (ring Theory)
In mathematics, and more specifically in ring theory, 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 elem ...
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