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Questions tagged [terminology]

Questions on the usage and meaning of words in mathematics, the names for mathematical entities, and other such questions.

Terminology is a discipline that studies, among other things, the development of terms and their interrelationships. This tag is intended to be used for questions on the usage and meaning of words in mathematics, the names for mathematical entities, and other such questions.

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Terminology for pair of functions that create a "canonicalization"

Hi, I'm a programmer who is looking for help on some terminology in order to do some further research. I hope this is an appropriate place to ask. What I'm looking for is the name of functions that picks a "canonical representative" on a set $Y$ in…
Philip Nilsson
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Mathematical equivalent of a one-dimensional array as seen in programming

Suppose some kind of structure to hold a (finite) number of elements is needed. The order of the elements matters and duplicate elements are allowed. When programming one would use a one-dimensional array for this. What mathematical structure comes…
wevoda
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Terminological question - "coaxial system"

I am reading a paper, and in it it says "disjoint circles of a coaxial system". What does the writer mean by that?
George
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What is the term for an operator that is "final"?

I'm not sure quite how to phrase this naive question, but what is the term for an operator that does the same thing no matter how many times it is applied? For example a projection operator $P$ has the defining property that $$P^2=P$$ Is there a…
orome
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Meaning of "on" and "over" in mathematics

I've seen copious usage of prepositions like "on" and "over" in mathematical texts with no concrete description of what they mean. Can someone please precisely define these terms for me, as in, what does it really mean when you say "let x be a y on…
mathstudent
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Average of minimum and maximum in set

What does one call the average of the minimum and maximum in a set of numbers? For example, if you have a set $\{0,1,2,3,10\}$: $\frac{0 + 10}{2} = 5$, which is called the _____________.
Muhd
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Is there a term for a set of functions which is unchanged under permutations of its variables?

A symmetric function is a function which is unchanged under any permutation of its variables, for example: $$f(x,y,z) = x^2+y^2+z^2+xy+xz+yz$$ There are sets of functions in which the individual functions are not symmetric but the set as a whole is…
Adam Bailey
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How is the mathematical term called?

I need help in identifying the underlining mathematical term of my method (group membership of a Person to an ideal role). So I have Ideal values (for the ideal role) shown here in the $1^{st}$ column (standardized mean values). The $2^{nd}$ column…
Elena Khan
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Any other names for what you are operating on (eg. Radicand)?

I had heard of the term radicand to describe the part under a square root. Recently I heard the term integrand to describe the part being integrated. I was wondering if there were any other terms like this?
Jamminermit
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What are the arguments of a string concatenation called?

In real addition, (for example 3 + 7), the first argument is called the "augend", and the second argument is called the "addend". In concatenating the string "ab" with "abb", to form the string "ababb", are there commonly-used names for the…
user63244
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Terminology for half the difference

Is there a term for half of the difference between two numbers $$x=\dfrac{a-b}{2}$$ Analogous to say the mean?
Archimedesprinciple
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"Without loss of generality" -- correct usage

When is correct to write "wlog" and what is example of wrongly used "wlog"? For example if proving $|D(x,B) - D(y,B)| \le d(x,y)$ with $D(x,B) = \inf_{b \in B} d(x,b)$ and $(X,d)$ is a metric space is it correct to write: "Without loss of generality…
colollary
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How to read $(h \circ g)\circ f = h \circ (g \circ f)$?

Let $f, g, h$ be functions. I learned that $g \circ f$ is read by "the composition of $f$ and $g$". Then, how to read $(h \circ g)\circ f = h \circ (g \circ f)$? the composition of $f$ and 'the composition of $g$ and $h$' is equal to the…
with-forest
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the definition of the word "equation" in math

Google give the following definition of the word "equation": "In mathematics, an equation is a statement of an equality containing one or more variables. Solving the equation consists of determining which values of the variables make the equality…
boaz
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Is there a name for the operation that turns "$7$" and "$8$" into "$78$"?

In the context of puzzles such as this: Write a program that outputs all possibilities to put + or - or nothing between the numbers 1,2,…,9 (in this order) such that the result is 100. For example 1 + 2 + 3 - 4 + 5 + 6 + 78 + 9 = 100. Is there a…
SAJW
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