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In mathematics, a property is any characteristic that applies to a given set. [1] Rigorously, a property p defined for all elements of a set X is usually defined as a function p: X → {true, false}, that is true whenever the property holds; or, equivalently, as the subset of X for which p holds; i.e. the set {x | p(x) = true}; p is its indicator function.
In mathematics, a characterization of an object is a set of conditions that, while possibly different from the definition of the object, is logically equivalent to it. [1] To say that "Property P characterizes object X" is to say that not only does X have property P, but that X is the only thing that has property P (i.e., P is a defining ...
Mathematical and theoretical biology, or biomathematics, is a branch of biology which employs theoretical analysis, mathematical models and abstractions of living organisms to investigate the principles that govern the structure, development and behavior of the systems, as opposed to experimental biology which deals with the conduction of ...
It is used as reference concept in scientific hierarchy definitions, and many technical approaches, like the tree in computational data structures or nested set model of relational databases. Sometimes the concept is confused with a collection of sets with a hereditary property (like finiteness in a hereditarily finite set ).
For example, in elementary arithmetic, one has (+) = + (). Therefore, one would say that multiplication distributes over addition . This basic property of numbers is part of the definition of most algebraic structures that have two operations called addition and multiplication, such as complex numbers , polynomials , matrices , rings , and fields .
A property holds "generically" on a set if the set satisfies some (context-dependent) notion of density, or perhaps if its complement satisfies some (context-dependent) notion of smallness. For example, a property which holds on a dense G δ (intersection of countably many open sets) is said to hold generically.
Today the commutative property is a well-known and basic property used in most branches of mathematics. The first recorded use of the term commutative was in a memoir by François Servois in 1814, [ 1 ] [ 10 ] which used the word commutatives when describing functions that have what is now called the commutative property.
In mathematics, a hereditary property is a property of an object that is inherited by all of its subobjects, where the meaning of subobject depends on the context. These properties are particularly considered in topology and graph theory , but also in set theory .