Transfinite induction Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
If a property of an ordinal follows whenever it holds for every smaller ordinal, then it holds for every ordinal.
Transfinite recursion Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
Transfinite recursion defines a value at each ordinal from the function of all earlier values.
Limit ordinal Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
A nonzero ordinal is a limit ordinal when it is not a successor ordinal. Equivalently, it is the supremum of all smaller ordinals.
Order type Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
The order type of a well-order is the unique ordinal isomorphic to it.
Countable ordinal Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Successor ordinal Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The successor of an ordinal is .
Conserved order-parameter dynamics Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-11-05
A conserved scalar order parameter evolves by transporting it rather than creating or destroying its total amount. A simple relaxational model has chemical potential , current and
with compatible boundary conditions and optional conserved thermal noise. Integrating gives constant total when boundary flux vanishes.
Linearizing a quadratic Landau-Ginzburg theory gives a decay rate . Away from criticality, positive yields ordinary diffusive scaling at small wavevector. At the Gaussian critical point , the leading rate is instead proportional to . Conservation forces the zero-wavevector mode to remain unchanged but does not by itself fix every critical decay exponent.
Nonconserved order-parameter dynamics Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-28
Nonconserved relaxational order-parameter dynamics has plus thermal noise. Its zero-wavenumber mode may decay.
Involution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
An involution is a group element satisfying . Some conventions require .
Mean-motion resonance Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-25
A mean-motion resonance has for small integers . Its slow resonant angle combines mean longitudes with apsidal or nodal longitudes.
Helical extremal Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-11-05
For an optical ray in cylindrical coordinates, a helical curve has and . It is a helical extremal only if it satisfies the Euler-Lagrange equations of the optical action. In a radial-index medium , the angular and axial first integrals are constant on this ansatz, while the radial equation reduces to
Indeed the derivative with respect to vanishes along the constant-radius ansatz, leaving the partial derivative of equal to zero.
A nonzero real winding rate therefore requires
For example, the smooth positive profile with admits for . In a constant-index medium, the equation instead forces , giving a straight axial line. These are stationary-ray conditions on the chosen segment, not a proof that every helical segment minimizes optical length.
Open disc Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-18
The open disc with centre and radius is .
Open ball Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
In a metric space, the open ball of radius about is ; it is the open-boundary convention for a ball.
Open interval Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
This is the open-boundary case of an interval.
An open interval in the real line is a set , allowing either endpoint to be infinite.
Bounded inverse theorem Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
A bounded bijective linear map between Banach spaces has a bounded inverse. This follows because an open bijection has continuous inverse.
Optimal one-to-one binary code Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-11-05
Suppose one source message is transmitted with its endpoint supplied externally, and allow the empty word. List source symbols in decreasing order of probability, , and assign distinct binary words in increasing length order. Then the th word has length , minimizing expected codeword length among one-to-one source codes.[ref]
There are binary words of length at most . This proves the length formula. If a more probable symbol had a longer word than a less probable one, exchanging the two would decrease or preserve the expected value of the length, proving optimality.
For probabilities , use the empty word, 0 and 1. The average is bit, compared with bits for an optimal binary prefix code. The difference uses the supplied endpoint: the three-word assignment cannot decode an arbitrary concatenated message stream without framing information.
Malleability of an additive one-time pad Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
If an interceptor knows that an additive one-time-pad ciphertext encrypts plaintext and wants it to decrypt as , replacing it by
works without knowing the key, since .
One-dimensional transfer matrix from scattering amplitudes Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
If the left and right travelling-wave coefficients are related by
then

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