Additive energy Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-13
The additive energy of a finite set in an abelian group counts additive quadruples, with order and repeated members allowed:
At a fixed sum , independently choosing two of its ordered pairs gives additive quadruples. Thus additive energy weights heavily represented sums more strongly than the cardinality of the sumset does.
For and , the sumset representation functions give
The arithmetic progression has additional coincidences such as . The set still has coincidences forced by commutativity, including , so its additive energy is not merely the sixteen identical-pair comparisons.
The same additive energy can be counted using the difference set. Define . The identity is equivalent to , and the coordinate rearrangement is a bijection. Consequently
For , the difference counts from through are again . For , the zero difference has four representations and each of the twelve nonzero differences has one, giving . The sumset representation functions for sums and differences can look different while their squared totals agree.
For every nonempty finite set in an abelian group ,
The lower bound follows from the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality and the total sumset representation function count:
For the upper bound, any three members determine at most one fourth member of an additive quadruple. See Yufei Zhao's MIT lecture 25, pages 1-3, for representation counts and the energy bounds.
In the two integer examples, the lower bounds are and , and the upper bound is . For the subgroup of , each element of has three sum representations, so and both bounds are equalities.
For nonempty , dividing additive energy by gives a relative measure between and one. Small doubling constant therefore forces relatively large additive energy. A converse requires care: the Balog-Szemerédi-Gowers theorem extracts a large subset with small doubling constant, rather than asserting that all of has small doubling constant.
Almost disjoint family on a regular cardinal Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
A family of size- subsets of a set is almost disjoint at when distinct members have intersection of size less than . Graphs of a long chain under eventual domination give such a family of size on . Transport by a bijection gives a family on itself.
A family of infinite subsets of such that any two distinct members have finite intersection.
Bélády's anomaly 2026-10-14
Increasing the number of page frames can increase misses under a given page replacement policy on the same page-reference trace. For FIFO page replacement on the displayed twelve-reference sequence, an empty start with three page frames gives nine misses, while an empty start with four gives ten. The larger run hits only at indices 5 and 6; it misses at 1–4 and 7–12. These are miss counts, not observed running times.[ref]
Figure 1.
FIFO page replacement queue states and cumulative misses: four page frames give ten misses versus nine with three
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The explanation is visible before the final count. After access 6, the three-page frame queue is and the four-page frame queue is , both oldest first. Loading memory page 5 at access 7 removes memory page 4 in the smaller run but memory page 1 in the larger. Their resulting resident sets are and . The smaller resident set is not a subset of the larger: its next access to memory page 1 hits while the larger run misses. Different earlier evictions create different histories; an extra page frame is not simply an extra unchanged slot. FIFO page replacement can improve on other sequences; the anomaly is an existence claim, not a claim that more page frames usually hurt.
Bijection Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
A bijection is a function that is both injective and surjective: each element of its codomain is the output of exactly one element of its domain of a function. The two requirements exclude unused targets and merged inputs respectively. The finite example , , is a bijection from to , whereas adding an unused target makes that same rule fail surjectivity.
A bijection gives an inverse function by reversing every pairing. Conversely, a two-sided inverse function implies a bijection, as the proof under inverse function shows. This is useful for transporting structures without losing or identifying elements. It also defines equality of cardinality: two sets have equal cardinality exactly when a bijection pairs them. An infinite example is from the integers to the even integers, with inverse on that specified codomain. A proper subset can therefore have the same cardinality as an infinite set. [ref].
Binomial coefficient Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-13
For nonnegative integers and , the binomial coefficient
counts the -element subsets of an -element set. To obtain the formula, first choose an ordered list of different members in ways. Each subset appears in exactly orders, so divide by that factorial. The cases and each have one selection, the empty set and the whole set. For integer outside , the combinatorial convention is .
For , , the calculation is . The left-hand panel lists all ten subsets of . Marking an included member with one and an excluded member with zero gives a bijection with length-five binary strings containing exactly two ones. More generally, this makes selection, binary encoding, and coefficients in a binomial theorem three descriptions of the same count.
Figure 1.
Ten two-element subsets of a five-element set match the corresponding entry of Pascal's triangle
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For a uniformly chosen two-person team, a specified person belongs to four of the ten teams, so the probability of their inclusion is . Uniform selection of a -element subset similarly gives inclusion probability for each member when , as the double counting identity shows.
Binomial theorem Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-13
For a nonnegative integer and commuting quantities ,
In expanding the factors, obtain by selecting the positions that contribute . There are such choices. For example,
The coefficients are row five of Pascal's triangle, in reverse order under the displayed convention; the row is symmetric. Setting gives , the number of subsets of a five-element set. Each member has two inclusion choices, agreeing with the rule of product and the cardinality of the power set.
Block of a set partition 2026-10-14
A block of a set partition is one of its nonempty subsets. Distinct blocks of a set partition have empty intersection, and their union is the original set. For , the blocks of a set partition are and the singleton set . The indices in a written list of blocks of a set partition do not label or order the set partition.
Block of a Steiner system 2026-10-14
A designated subset in a Steiner system is a Steiner block. In a system , each Steiner block contains points and each -point subset belongs to exactly one Steiner block. For , this is the pair-coverage condition used in a cyclotomic construction of a Steiner 2-design.
Boundary of a set Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-14
The boundary of a subset of a topological space consists of the points whose every neighbourhood in meets both and its complement . Equivalently,
Here the two operations are closure and interior. The second formula shows that the boundary is a closed set and that and its complement have the same boundary. It locates precisely the points where membership cannot be decided from a small neighbourhood alone. [ref]
For in the usual real line, the interior is , the closure is , and the boundary is . In particular, belongs both to and to its boundary, while belongs to the boundary but not to . A boundary point need not be excluded from the original set: open sets exclude all their boundary points, closed sets contain all theirs, and this half-open interval does one of each.
Figure 1.
Relative openness in a closed interval and the boundary of a half-open interval
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The upper panel visualizes the relative example from open set: for and , an open ball about zero in is when . This open ball stays in ; points outside are not required. The middle panel shows that is clopen in itself, with interior and closure both and empty boundary, although its boundary in the real line is . The lower panel returns to ambient space and separates the interior, closure, and boundary of ; both marked boundary points are included in the boundary itself.
If the members of a possibly infinite set family have size at most , there is a finite subset of size at most with exactly the same hitting sets of size at most . Use mathematical induction on . For nonempty , choose . When this one member suffices. Otherwise, for each , retain an inductive kernel for at parameter , and take their set union together with . Its size is at most . A hitting set for this kernel meets at some ; meets the kernel for , hence all of , while meets the other members of . If is empty no hitting set exists, and if is empty its kernel is empty. Only finite branching is used, so no finiteness assumption on is needed.
Bounding volume hierarchy 2026-10-14
A bounding volume hierarchy is a data structure arranged as a rooted tree: leaves store objects, and each internal node stores a bounding volume enclosing its children in a rooted tree. Consequently, every node encloses all objects in its subtree. A common choice is a binary tree of axis-aligned bounding boxes. The objects assigned to sibling subtrees can be different even when their bounding volumes overlap.[ref]
Here is an exact two-dimensional example. Use the triangles from bounding volume, together with having vertices of a polygon and having vertices of a polygon . Group under , and under . Their parent axis-aligned bounding boxes and the box at the root of a tree are
The diagram shows all seven nodes. Taking the coordinate-wise minimum and maximum of the two child boxes constructs each parent box; the resulting box contains the set union of the children, and can also contain empty space between them.
Figure 1.
Four exact triangles, their enclosing boxes, and a seven-node bounding volume hierarchy arranged as a binary tree
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A bounding volume hierarchy traversal starts at the root of a tree and discards a subtree when its bounding volume misses the query. Accepted internal nodes expose their children; accepted leaves supply candidates for actual shape tests. Box2D's official Collision: Dynamic Tree describes axis-aligned bounding box region queries that return overlapping leaf boxes. A query box that bounds a different query shape can produce additional false candidates.
For the closed query rectangle
left-first depth-first search tests the node boxes in order: root, , , , . The first four overlap ; does not, because its smallest -coordinate is . Pruning skips both and . Five box tests leave two broad phase candidates. The narrow phase rejects , since throughout , and accepts : the point belongs to both and . There are two detailed shape tests and one true hit.
Figure 2.
An exact rectangle query prunes the right subtree and leaves two box candidates but only one triangle hit
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For a query asking for all intersections, time complexity depends on the number of visited nodes and the cost of each candidate shape test. With fixed dimension and constant bookkeeping cost per node, the work is
where counts candidate objects and is Big O notation. A balanced binary tree has small height of a binary tree, but a query can enter both children at every level. In this example a query containing visits all seven nodes and tests all four triangles. More generally, a full binary tree with single-object leaves has nodes, so such a query takes work for constant-cost shape tests even when its height of a binary tree is . Listing hits itself requires outputs. Small height alone gives no unconditional logarithmic query bound.
For collision detection between two bounding volume hierarchies, traverse pairs of nodes: reject disjoint pairs of bounding volumes, expand a nonleaf member of an accepted pair, and apply the narrow phase at accepted leaf pairs. A single collection's self-query must exclude pairing an object with itself and avoid duplicate unordered pairs. If every object overlaps every other object, reporting all pairs already requires results. Construction quality, empty space in boxes and the queries determine how much pruning is useful.[ref]
For a short correctness outline, an object is enclosed by its leaf box, and each child box is enclosed by its parent box. Repeated subset relations carry this property to every ancestor. A true query intersection therefore prevents rejection at every ancestor of the object's leaf. Updating leaf boxes after motion also requires restoring all affected ancestor bounds before querying.
Cantor's diagonal argument Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Cantor's diagonal argument shows that the set of all infinite binary sequences is an uncountable set. Suppose a proposed enumeration is , where is coordinate of row . Construct a new binary sequence by
It differs from row at coordinate , for every . It is consequently absent from the entire proposed list, regardless of how that list was chosen. The failure of an enumeration of all binary sequences follows from this precise point of disagreement, rather than from a claim that the list looks too small.
Figure 1.
Flipping the nth coordinate of the nth row constructs a binary sequence missing from every proposed row
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For the displayed window, the first six diagonal bits are , so the new sequence starts . The drawing shows only finitely many rows, but the rule defines every coordinate and excludes every row of an infinite list. This distinguishes the argument from the Cantor pairing function: that construction lists all pairs of finite indices, whereas this one concerns an entire infinite sequence as each object to be listed. Finite binary strings form a countable set; all infinite binary sequences do not.
The connection with power sets is exact: a subset corresponds to its indicator function, with a one in position exactly when . Changing the diagonal membership bit is the same mechanism as the Cantor's theorem construction . This reusable method turns a purported complete list into an explicit omitted object.
In his paper [ref], presented in 1891 and printed in the 1890–91 volume in 1892, Cantor uses infinite sequences of two symbols for the diagonal construction and then gives the broader comparison of cardinalities. The binary notation here is a modern presentation of that construction.
Capture-recapture model 2026-10-14
A capture-recapture model is a statistical model for repeated observations of identifiable individuals, including those missed on some occasions. A closed-population capture-recapture model estimates a fixed population cardinality; models allowing individuals to enter or leave can instead describe survival and recruitment. The sampling assumptions determine which likelihood function is appropriate.
For the two-sample closed-population capture-recapture model, condition on the sample sizes and . If the second sample selects distinct individuals from by simple random sampling, then the overlap has the hypergeometric distribution:
Here is an integer and the probability mass function is zero outside these bounds. The binomial coefficients count choices of marked and unmarked individuals, divided by all equally likely size- subsets. The hypergeometric distribution has expected value
Equating the observed overlap with this expected value gives the Lincoln-Petersen estimator. The underlying sampling without replacement, probability mass function, and expected value are developed in Raymond P. Guiteras, MIT 14.30 hypergeometric distribution handout, §§1–4 and 8.
For the toy counts , , and , hold the observations fixed and vary the unknown integer . The likelihood function is
Values below forty cannot contain the observed set union. Exact comparison of consecutive likelihoods gives two tied maximum-likelihood estimates, and . The Lincoln-Petersen estimator returns ; the Chapman estimator returns and is a different rule for estimation.
Figure 1.
Relative likelihood for the toy overlap: integer maxima at 99 and 100, ratio estimate 100, and Chapman estimate 90
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The vertical scale is . This relative likelihood compares how well candidate statistical parameters explain the same observations; it is not a posterior probability. The displayed range is only a plotting window. The likelihood function remains positive for every integer and tends to zero as increases, so the curve has a continuing right tail. The data do not justify truncating statistical inference at three hundred. The conditional hypergeometric distribution formulation also appears in Louis-Paul Rivest and Mamadou Yauck, Small Sample Estimators for Two-way Capture Recapture Experiments, §3, equation (5).
Zero recaptures require care. With and positive , the Lincoln-Petersen estimator has no finite ratio, but the capture-recapture model still gives a valid likelihood function:
This likelihood function increases toward one as grows, so there is no finite maximum-likelihood estimate. For the same sample sizes twenty and twenty-five with zero overlap, forty-five distinct individuals would be observed. Lack of overlap supplies a lower bound but very weak information about large population cardinalities.
In more elaborate capture-recapture models, a first-recapture array counts individuals released at occasion and next observed at . A probability of survival and a probability of detection contribute a no-observation continuation factor . The resulting likelihood function depends on both survival and detection; these probabilities need not be separately identifiable at the last observation interval. Missing-count EM for capture-recapture describes one way to fit such a model, and identifiability remains a separate issue from computing an estimator output.
Category Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
A category specifies objects of a category, categorical morphisms between them, and composition in a category. An arrow can be followed by , giving . Every object has an identity morphism , and the rules satisfy
Associativity means that grouping a chain differently does not change its composite. It does not assert commutativity, and the sources and targets must match before a composite is defined.
In the Category of sets, arrows are functions. Take two functions on the real numbers, and . Then , whereas . At , the two orders give 8 and 7, respectively. Both orders are defined here because these maps share their source and target; for arbitrary arrows the reverse composite need not exist.
Figure 1.
Function composition remembers order, while a naturality square gives equal results along both routes
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A partially ordered set supplies a different example: its elements are the objects of a category, with exactly one arrow when , and none otherwise. Transitivity gives composition in a category, and reflexivity gives identity morphisms. For subsets ordered by inclusion, the two chains and have the same composite arrow. Thus arrows need not be maps of elements: they can record a relation.