Digit agreement and p-adic distance

ID: digit-agreement-and-p-adic-distance

Two p-adic integers agree in their first low-order p-adic digits precisely when their difference is divisible by . Equivalently,
If the first differing digit has index , the remaining leading coefficient is nonzero modulo , giving exact P-adic valuation and p-adic metric . If no digit differs, the two elements are equal and their distance is zero. Truncating at therefore gives , with a stricter bound possible when further digits are zero.

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