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If you have a number that is between 0 and 1, what would you call the number that you add to it to get 1? Is there a specific term for it? I was under the impression it had a name like inverse or reciprocal or something like that, although I know it is neither of those.

In probability, if the chances of something happening are 0.2, then 0.8 is the complementary probability, but I'm looking for a more general term.

BladePoint
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  • I don't think it has a name. I haven't heard of one, at least. – Arthur Dec 23 '18 at 22:04
  • For what it's worth, I have also never heard of any specific name applied to such a value. – John Omielan Dec 23 '18 at 22:05
  • I only know the fractional part of a number, but that's also not really what you want. – ViktorStein Dec 23 '18 at 22:11
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    In a *very* loose sense it be okay to call in a "compliment" (to get an integer value). But compliment will have other meanings in other contexts. I think if you called it a "fractional compliment" most would surmise in context what you meant. ANd there's nothing wrong with explaining what you mean. – fleablood Dec 23 '18 at 22:37
  • Maybe you can invent a name for it if you need to use it a lot. How about "padding"? e.g. For $0.2$, we pad $0.8$ to get $1$. – Alex Vong Dec 23 '18 at 22:38
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    @fleablood Complement with an e I hope! Compliment would be telling the number how wonderful it is, not subtracting it from $1$ . . . – timtfj Dec 23 '18 at 23:21
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    If you want it to subtract from 1 willingly you'd better be nice to it! – fleablood Dec 23 '18 at 23:43
  • @fleablood Good point! – timtfj Dec 23 '18 at 23:46

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