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In elementary mathematics, the additive inverse is often referred to as the opposite number, [3] [4] or its negative. [5] The unary operation of arithmetic negation [6] is closely related to subtraction [7] and is important in solving algebraic equations. [8] Not all sets where addition is defined have an additive inverse, such as the natural ...
The elementary functions are constructed by composing arithmetic operations, the exponential function (), the natural logarithm (), trigonometric functions (,), and their inverses. The complexity of an elementary function is equivalent to that of its inverse, since all elementary functions are analytic and hence invertible by means of Newton's ...
Operations of the same precedence are conventionally evaluated from left to right. If each division is replaced with multiplication by the reciprocal (multiplicative inverse) then the associative and commutative laws of multiplication allow the factors in each term to be multiplied together in any order.
In an informal sense, one operation is the inverse of another operation if it undoes the first operation. For example, subtraction is the inverse of addition since a number returns to its original value if a second number is first added and subsequently subtracted, as in 13 + 4 − 4 = 13 {\displaystyle 13+4-4=13} .
Logarithms and exponentials with the same base cancel each other. This is true because logarithms and exponentials are inverse operations—much like the same way multiplication and division are inverse operations, and addition and subtraction are inverse operations.
Given a set with an addition operation, one cannot always define a corresponding subtraction operation on that set; the set of natural numbers is a simple example. On the other hand, a subtraction operation uniquely determines an addition operation, an additive inverse operation, and an additive identity; for this reason, an additive group can ...
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.
An equivalent, and more succinct, definition is: a field has two commutative operations, called addition and multiplication; it is a group under addition with 0 as the additive identity; the nonzero elements form a group under multiplication with 1 as the multiplicative identity; and multiplication distributes over addition.