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A repeating decimal or recurring decimal is a decimal representation of a number whose digits are eventually periodic (that is, after some place, the same sequence of digits is repeated forever); if this sequence consists only of zeros (that is if there is only a finite number of nonzero digits), the decimal is said to be terminating, and is not considered as repeating.
The question is whether or not, for all problems for which an algorithm can verify a given solution quickly (that is, in polynomial time), an algorithm can also find that solution quickly. Since the former describes the class of problems termed NP, while the latter describes P, the question is equivalent to asking whether all problems in NP are ...
A common algorithm design tactic is to divide a problem into sub-problems of the same type as the original, solve those sub-problems, and combine the results. This is often referred to as the divide-and-conquer method; when combined with a lookup table that stores the results of previously solved sub-problems (to avoid solving them repeatedly and incurring extra computation time), it can be ...
The simplest example given by Thimbleby of a possible problem when using an immediate-execution calculator is 4 × (−5). As a written formula the value of this is −20 because the minus sign is intended to indicate a negative number, rather than a subtraction, and this is the way that it would be interpreted by a formula calculator.
The solutions to the sub-problems are then combined to give a solution to the original problem. The divide-and-conquer technique is the basis of efficient algorithms for many problems, such as sorting (e.g., quicksort, merge sort), multiplying large numbers (e.g., the Karatsuba algorithm), finding the closest pair of points, syntactic analysis ...
When seeking a solution, one or more variables are designated as unknowns. A solution is an assignment of values to the unknown variables that makes the equality in the equation true. In other words, a solution is a value or a collection of values (one for each unknown) such that, when substituted for the unknowns, the equation becomes an equality.
Long division is the standard algorithm used for pen-and-paper division of multi-digit numbers expressed in decimal notation. It shifts gradually from the left to the right end of the dividend, subtracting the largest possible multiple of the divisor (at the digit level) at each stage; the multiples then become the digits of the quotient, and the final difference is then the remainder.
Many mathematical problems have been stated but not yet solved. These problems come from many areas of mathematics, such as theoretical physics, computer science, algebra, analysis, combinatorics, algebraic, differential, discrete and Euclidean geometries, graph theory, group theory, model theory, number theory, set theory, Ramsey theory, dynamical systems, and partial differential equations.