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In mathematics, "rational" is often used as a noun abbreviating "rational number". The adjective rational sometimes means that the coefficients are rational numbers. For example, a rational point is a point with rational coordinates (i.e., a point whose coordinates are rational numbers); a rational matrix is a matrix of rational numbers; a rational polynomial may be a polynomial with rational ...
The rational numbers, the real numbers, and the complex numbers each form a field with the operations of addition and multiplication. [74] Ring theory is the study of rings, exploring concepts such as subrings, quotient rings, polynomial rings, and ideals as well as theorems such as Hilbert's basis theorem. [75]
Rational number arithmetic is the branch of arithmetic that deals with the manipulation of numbers that can be expressed as a ratio of two integers. [93] Most arithmetic operations on rational numbers can be calculated by performing a series of integer arithmetic operations on the numerators and the denominators of the involved numbers.
Informally, a field is a set, along with two operations defined on that set: an addition operation written as a + b, and a multiplication operation written as a ⋅ b, both of which behave similarly as they behave for rational numbers and real numbers, including the existence of an additive inverse −a for all elements a, and of a multiplicative inverse b −1 for every nonzero element b.
Such a number is algebraic and can be expressed as the sum of a rational number and the square root of a rational number. Constructible number: A number representing a length that can be constructed using a compass and straightedge. Constructible numbers form a subfield of the field of algebraic numbers, and include the quadratic surds.
The number of operands is the arity of the operation. The most commonly studied operations are binary operations (i.e., operations of arity 2), such as addition and multiplication, and unary operations (i.e., operations of arity 1), such as additive inverse and multiplicative inverse. An operation of arity zero, or nullary operation, is a constant.
In mathematics, an algebraic expression is an expression built up from constants (usually, algebraic numbers) variables, and the basic algebraic operations: addition (+), subtraction (-), multiplication (×), division (÷), whole number powers, and roots (fractional powers).
The unit fractions are the rational numbers that can be written in the form , where can be any positive natural number. They are thus the multiplicative inverses of the positive integers. When something is divided into n {\displaystyle n} equal parts, each part is a 1 / n {\displaystyle 1/n} fraction of the whole.