Portal:Mathematics
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Mathematics is the study of representing and reasoning about abstract objects (such as numbers, points, spaces, sets, structures, and games). Mathematics is used throughout the world as an essential tool in many fields, including natural science, engineering, medicine, and the social sciences. Applied mathematics, the branch of mathematics concerned with application of mathematical knowledge to other fields, inspires and makes use of new mathematical discoveries and sometimes leads to the development of entirely new mathematical disciplines, such as statistics and game theory. Mathematicians also engage in pure mathematics, or mathematics for its own sake, without having any application in mind. There is no clear line separating pure and applied mathematics, and practical applications for what began as pure mathematics are often discovered. (Full article...)
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- ... that Catechumen, a Christian first-person shooter, was funded only in the aftermath of the Columbine High School massacre?
- ... that mathematician Mathias Metternich was one of the founders of the Jacobin club of the Republic of Mainz?
- ... that the discovery of Descartes' theorem in geometry came from a too-difficult mathematics problem posed to a princess?
- ... that although the problem of squaring the circle with compass and straightedge goes back to Greek mathematics, it was not proven impossible until 1882?
- ... that in the aftermath of the American Civil War, the only Black-led organization providing teachers to formerly enslaved people was the African Civilization Society?
- ... that despite a mathematical model deeming the ice cream bar flavour Goody Goody Gum Drops impossible, it was still created?
- ... that a folded paper lantern shows that certain mathematical definitions of surface area are incorrect?
- ... that despite published scholarship to the contrary, Andrew Planta neither received a doctorate nor taught mathematics at Erlangen?
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- ...that the identity elements for arithmetic operations make use of the only two whole numbers that are neither composites nor prime numbers, 0 and 1?
- ...that as of April 2010 only 35 even numbers have been found that are not the sum of two primes which are each in a Twin Primes pair? ref
- ...the Piphilology record (memorizing digits of Pi) is 70000 as of Mar 2015?
- ...that people are significantly slower to identify the parity of zero than other whole numbers, regardless of age, language spoken, or whether the symbol or word for zero is used?
- ...that Auction theory was successfully used in 1994 to sell FCC airwave spectrum, in a financial application of game theory?
- ...properties of Pascal's triangle have application in many fields of mathematics including combinatorics, algebra, calculus and geometry?
- ...work in artificial intelligence makes use of swarm intelligence, which has foundations in the behavioral examples found in nature of ants, birds, bees, and fish among others?
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In this shear transformation of the Mona Lisa, the central vertical axis (red vector) is unchanged, but the diagonal vector (blue) has changed direction. Hence the red vector is said to be an eigenvector of this particular transformation and the blue vector is not. Image credit: User:Voyajer |
In mathematics, an eigenvector of a transformation is a vector, different from the zero vector, which that transformation simply multiplies by a constant factor, called the eigenvalue of that vector. Often, a transformation is completely described by its eigenvalues and eigenvectors. The eigenspace for a factor is the set of eigenvectors with that factor as eigenvalue, together with the zero vector.
In the specific case of linear algebra, the eigenvalue problem is this: given an n by n matrix A, what nonzero vectors x in exist, such that Ax is a scalar multiple of x?
The scalar multiple is denoted by the Greek letter λ and is called an eigenvalue of the matrix A, while x is called the eigenvector of A corresponding to λ. These concepts play a major role in several branches of both pure and applied mathematics — appearing prominently in linear algebra, functional analysis, and to a lesser extent in nonlinear situations.
It is common to prefix any natural name for the vector with eigen instead of saying eigenvector. For example, eigenfunction if the eigenvector is a function, eigenmode if the eigenvector is a harmonic mode, eigenstate if the eigenvector is a quantum state, and so on. Similarly for the eigenvalue, e.g. eigenfrequency if the eigenvalue is (or determines) a frequency. (Full article...)
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- ^ Kazarinoff (2003), pp. 10, 15 ; Martin (1998), p. 41, Corollary 2.16 .