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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.

8534 questions
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How to rigorously state $P(x)$ is true for all but a finite number of $x$?

How to rigorously state that the predicate $P(x)$ is true for all but a finite number of $x\in\mathbb{N}$? My Attempt There is a finite set $\mathcal{S}\subset \mathbb{N}$ s.t. $s\in\mathcal{S}\implies \neg P(x)$ and $s\notin\mathcal{S}, s\in…
Kun
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what is the terminology of this form of equation $x^2 +1/x^2 + \sqrt{x}$

what is the terminology of this form of equation. It has only one variable, but with rational exponents, it can be positive, negative or fraction such as below: $ax^2 +b/x^2 + c\sqrt{x} =0 $ I understand it is not a polynomial function. but what…
Leo wang
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Is there a name for this relationship?

I recently came upon this equation dealing with percentages: $$P = 1 - ((1 - p_1) * (1 - p_2) * ... * (1 - p_n))$$ In context, it appears to be a way to combine percentages without ever going over 100%. I'm wondering if this function has a name,…
ladenedge
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Are there standard terms for more fine/coarse grained (but otherwise consistent) ways of ordering values?

Consider an sequence of unique values. Each value is composed of a surname and a first name in that order of significance. Based on that, I can define a complete ordering of values in the sequence. However, I can also usefully define less…
user510
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Term to contrast multiplicative factors greater/less than one?

Are there adjectives to distinguish positive real numbers/functions depending on whether they are greater/equal/less than one? I have a nagging feeling that I already know the answer but can't remember. I am expecting something along the lines of…
Emre
  • 2,783
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Is there an official term for "double monotonic"?

I want to describe function that is monotonic increasing/decreasing up to some point, and then is allowed to switch to be monotonic decreasing/increasing (the other direction). In other words, it "goes up then down" or "goes down then up", but…
aiai
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What does it mean for a theorem to be "delicate"?

I'm not sure what this means. Thanks for your help.
Tang Lang
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What's logical symbol for "for some"?

"For every" $x\in S$ would be $\forall x\in S$ which it's same as "for all" $x\in S$. But, is "for some" is same as "there exist"? It seems Yes, but is it Yes for every time? In several texts I found both use of "for some" and "there exist", not…
user231343
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Does saying "to negate a sign of a const term" has a meaning

If I have term -5 and I want to change its sign to opposite can I say that I'm negating its sign?
There is nothing we can do
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Is there a name for the vector field that points along contour lines of a scalar field, proportional to the gradient?

Given a scalar field $G$ on $\mathbb{R}^2$ (say), the vector field $(\frac{\partial G}{\partial x}, \frac{\partial G}{\partial y})$ is called the gradient of $G$. Is there a standard name for the vector field $(-\frac{\partial G}{\partial y},…
Andrew Bacon
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Is there a name for "scales" that are bounded? (e.g. "severity scales")

I'm coding a piece of software that has to deal with many quantities and mappings of these quantities to a this is "10 out of 100 bad" scale. For example: a server response time of 200ms is 50/100 bad. (i.e. the "severity score" of a 200ms response…
Rafael Almeida
  • 248
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What does it mean for an object to be "under" an operation?

In the book Roads to Infinity: The Mathematics of Truth and Proof, the author stated: For each n, one has the n-string braid group $B_n$, consisting of all the n-string braids under the braid product operation. I don't understand what this…
Kelmikra
  • 438
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Set of "rounded to nearest p" fixed decimal numbers?

I'm trying to define a set of "fixed precision" or "rounded" numbers. For example, I want to define a rotation in degrees by every $5$ degrees, so $X = \{0,5, \ldots , 355, 360\}$. $$X = \{x_i \in \Re \mid (x_\min \le x_i \le x_\max) \text{ and }…
DoctorJ
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How are fields (algebra) related to vector/scalar fields?

Is there a reason as to why they both have similar etymologies? If not, is there a big book of mathematical etymologies? Please include sources, thanks!
jsmith
  • 383
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Is there a term for "mutually define"?

Today, I learnt about the relation between inner product space and normed space which parallelogram law holds. Then I had wondered about something like this: Let $A$, $B$ are 2 types of structures. Let $(X,f)$ be an instance of $A$. It's known (1)…
hcsiw
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