In
abstract algebra
In mathematics, more specifically algebra, abstract algebra or modern algebra is the study of algebraic structures. Algebraic structures include groups, rings, fields, modules, vector spaces, lattices, and algebras over a field. The te ...
, the sedenions form a 16-
dimensional noncommutative and
nonassociative
In mathematics, the associative property is a property of some binary operations, which means that rearranging the parentheses in an expression will not change the result. In propositional logic, associativity is a valid rule of replacement f ...
algebra
Algebra () is one of the areas of mathematics, broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathem ...
over the
real number
In mathematics, a real number is a number that can be used to measurement, measure a ''continuous'' one-dimensional quantity such as a distance, time, duration or temperature. Here, ''continuous'' means that values can have arbitrarily small var ...
s; they are obtained by applying the
Cayley–Dickson construction to the
octonions, and as such the octonions are
isomorphic to a
subalgebra of the sedenions. Unlike the octonions, the sedenions are not an
alternative algebra. Applying the Cayley–Dickson construction to the sedenions yields a 32-dimensional algebra, sometimes called the ''32-ions'' or ''trigintaduonions''. It is possible to continue applying the Cayley–Dickson construction arbitrarily many times.
The term ''sedenion'' is also used for other 16-dimensional algebraic structures, such as a tensor product of two copies of the
biquaternions, or the algebra of 4 × 4
matrices over the real numbers, or that studied by .
Arithmetic

Like
octonions,
multiplication
Multiplication (often denoted by the cross symbol , by the mid-line dot operator , by juxtaposition, or, on computers, by an asterisk ) is one of the four elementary mathematical operations of arithmetic, with the other ones being ad ...
of sedenions is neither
commutative
In mathematics, a binary operation is commutative if changing the order of the operands does not change the result. It is a fundamental property of many binary operations, and many mathematical proofs depend on it. Most familiar as the name o ...
nor
associative
In mathematics, the associative property is a property of some binary operations, which means that rearranging the parentheses in an expression will not change the result. In propositional logic, associativity is a valid rule of replacement ...
.
But in contrast to the octonions, the sedenions do not even have the property of being
alternative.
They do, however, have the property of
power associativity, which can be stated as that, for any element
x of
, the power
is well defined. They are also
flexible.
Every sedenion is a
linear combination of the unit sedenions
,
,
,
, ...,
,
which form a
basis of the
vector space
In mathematics and physics, a vector space (also called a linear space) is a set whose elements, often called '' vectors'', may be added together and multiplied ("scaled") by numbers called '' scalars''. Scalars are often real numbers, but ...
of sedenions. Every sedenion can be represented in the form
:
Addition and subtraction are defined by the addition and subtraction of corresponding coefficients and multiplication is
distributive over addition.
Like other algebras based on the
Cayley–Dickson construction, the sedenions contain the algebra they were constructed from. So, they contain the octonions (generated by
to
in the table below), and therefore also the
quaternion
In mathematics, the quaternion number system extends the complex numbers. Quaternions were first described by the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton in 1843 and applied to mechanics in three-dimensional space. Hamilton defined a quat ...
s (generated by
to
),
complex number
In mathematics, a complex number is an element of a number system that extends the real numbers with a specific element denoted , called the imaginary unit and satisfying the equation i^= -1; every complex number can be expressed in the for ...
s (generated by
and
) and real numbers (generated by
).
The sedenions have a multiplicative
identity element
In mathematics, an identity element, or neutral element, of a binary operation operating on a set is an element of the set that leaves unchanged every element of the set when the operation is applied. This concept is used in algebraic structures s ...
and multiplicative inverses, but they are not a
division algebra
In the field of mathematics called abstract algebra, a division algebra is, roughly speaking, an algebra over a field in which division, except by zero, is always possible.
Definitions
Formally, we start with a non-zero algebra ''D'' over a f ...
because they have
zero divisors. This means that two non-zero sedenions can be multiplied to obtain zero: an example is
. All
hypercomplex number systems after sedenions that are based on the Cayley–Dickson construction also contain zero divisors.
A sedenion multiplication table is shown below:
Sedenion properties
From the above table, we can see that:
:
:
and
:
Anti-associative
The sedenions are not fully anti-associative. Choose any four generators,
and
. The following 5-cycle shows that these five relations cannot all be anti-associative.
In particular, in the table above, using
and
the last expression associates.
Quaternionic subalgebras
The 35 triads that make up this specific sedenion multiplication table with the 7 triads of the
octonions used in creating the sedenion through the
Cayley–Dickson construction shown in bold:
The binary representations of the indices of these triples
bitwise XOR to 0.
The list of 84 sets of zero divisors
, where
:
Applications
showed that the space of pairs of norm-one sedenions that multiply to zero is
homeomorphic to the compact form of the exceptional
Lie group
In mathematics, a Lie group (pronounced ) is a group that is also a differentiable manifold. A manifold is a space that locally resembles Euclidean space, whereas groups define the abstract concept of a binary operation along with the addit ...
G2. (Note that in his paper, a "zero divisor" means a ''pair'' of elements that multiply to zero.)
Sedenion neural networks provide a means of efficient and compact expression in machine learning applications and have been used in solving multiple time-series and traffic forecasting problems.
See also
*
Hypercomplex number
*
Pfister's sixteen-square identity In algebra, Pfister's sixteen-square identity is a non- bilinear identity of form
\left(x_1^2+x_2^2+x_3^2+\cdots+x_^2\right)\left(y_1^2+y_2^2+y_3^2+\cdots+y_^2\right) = z_1^2+z_2^2+z_3^2+\cdots+z_^2
It was first proven to exist by H. Zassenhaus a ...
*
Split-complex number
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*L. S. Saoud and H. Al-Marzouqi, "Metacognitive Sedenion-Valued Neural Network and its Learning Algorithm," in IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 144823-144838, 2020, doi
10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3014690
{{Number systems
Hypercomplex numbers
Non-associative algebras