Mathematics Stack Exchange
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Questions tagged [arithmetic]

Questions on basic arithmetic involving numerical quantities only. Questions involving variable values (other than the result of the operation) should be placed under the (algebra-precalculus) tag. Questions about number theory (sometimes called "arithmetic") should not use this tag and should instead use (number-theory) or (elementary-number-theory).

Arithmetic is defined as operations upon numbers using $4$ main operations along with many others:

addition - the sum of two numbers

subtraction - the difference of two numbers also defined as the addition of negative numbers

multiplication - the area of a rectangle with sides of lengths equal to the two operands

division - the number of times one number can be subtracted from another before equaling zero. Sometimes it will allow decimals and in other cases there will be a remainder left over when a number doesn't go into another evenly

See Arithmetic.

6283 questions
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integer to float

How can represent any number from 0 to 127 as something between 0 and 1 ? for example 64's equivalent would be 0.5
Alex
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Are "$a-b-c$" and "$a/b/c$" meaningful expressions or not?

While expressions of the form $a/bc$ are definitely ambiguous, since they can be interpreted either as $(a/b)c$ or as $a/(bc)$, what about expressions of the form $a-b-c$ or $a/b/c$? "Subtraction" and "Division" are certainly not associative, so…
user140776
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A thorough explanation on why division by zero is undefined?

A Quick Note I know there is a slough of related questions on stack exchange, but none of them really seem to answer my question. This post is the closest in relationship to my question, but the answer simply expresses a high level mathematical…
Hazel へいぜる
  • 459
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How to make sense of multiplication in the case of negative times positive?

Multiplication, most fundamentally, means that when there are two or more equal numbers to be added together, the expression of their sum can be abridged: $2+2+2+2+2+2$ can be abridged as $6\times 2$ (which essentially means the…
dRIFT sPEED
  • 437
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Is the Value of 1 Relative

Basic arithmetic teaches us the value of $1$ by counting (i.e. apples or oranges). A more advanced teaching of the count reveals that the count is a concept where each count of $1$ is exactly identical. This is different from the real world.…
01nexium
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Is it convention or a fundamental mathematical property that the product of two negative numbers is positive?

Consider the following excerpts from Ask Dr. Math : Excerpt 1 So the real question is, $$(-1)(-1) = ?$$ and the answer is that the following convention has been adopted: $$(-1)(-1) = (+1)$$ This convention has been adopted for the simple reason…
Farhad
  • 291
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Formulating a word problem

I know this looks simple and I understand it and I've been able to find the solution, however I am not sure how to formulate this with equations. The problem is: A basket can hold 5 apples and 4 oranges together, while it can hold 12 oranges alone.…
dhanshreeA
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Write integers up to 100 using $2,3,4$ and $5$.

I plan on giving this challenge to my students but I can't seem to solve it myself. Challenge : write all the integers from $0$ to $100$ using the numbers $2,3,4$ and $5$ exactly once and in this order. Operations allowed are addition,…
krirkrirk
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How to interpret multiplication of a number with zero

I am sorry if this question looks stupid. When we multiply $2\times2$ it means we are adding $2$ two times, i.e. $(2+2)$. Or $3\times2$ means $(3+3)$ or $(2+2+2)$. Then if we multiply $3\times0$ it means we are $3$ zero times. Does this mean that we…
aneesh cool
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Reverse of Modulo Operator

I have posted this question originally in Stack Overflow. The question is, "Is there a mathematical approach in getting the reverse of the Modulo Operator with given result $r$ and divisor $d$?" So, the Modulo Operator % gives the remainder when…
xGeo
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If a sum is one, the sum of all products are also one.

Let $p_1,\ldots,p_s$ be $s$ number in the unit interval such that $$p_1+\ldots+p_s=1.$$ Is it then true, that for every $n\geq 1$ we have $$ \sum_{(k_1,\ldots,k_n)\in \{1,\ldots,s \}^n} p_{k_1}\cdot \ldots \cdot p_{k_n}=1 ?$$ Checking it for $n=2$…
MyCatsHat
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Why dividing a number by another number gives you the set of divisible numbers

This might sound trivial, but I am wondering why, for example if you do: $\lfloor10/8\rfloor = 1 \implies 1$ number $[1,10]$ divisible by $8$: $\{8\}$ $\lfloor10/3\rfloor = 3 \implies 3$ numbers $[1,10]$ divisible by $3$: $\{3,6,9\}$ …
udpcon
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Which mathematical operations are atomic?

That’s probably a stupid a newbie question and I’m not sure if I'm phrasing it in the right words so please feel free to correct me. So there are only several atomic operations in math. By atomic I mean it can’t be further simplified. So any…
Thanks for playing
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Does this pattern of arithmetic exist?

I have not studied mathematics very deeply, and I'm not familiar with the terminology. However, I have thought about a kind of pattern and wonder if anything like that exists or is being used today. The original thought of mine is that…
Robin Manoli
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How to compute the following formulas?

$\sqrt{2+\sqrt{2+\sqrt{2+\dots}}}$ $\dots\sqrt{2+\sqrt{2+\sqrt{2}}}$ Why they are different?
Timothy
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