novice needing help

Xcott Craver caj at math.niu.edu
Tue Aug 11 15:46:11 PDT 1998


On Tue, 11 Aug 1998, Olivier Langlois wrote:

> a = b/c and
> d = b/(b mod c)

	I'm not sure what you're trying to say with this notation.

	Well, if by '/' you mean integer division with truncation
	(a la most programming languages,) then consider that
	
		 9 = 49/5 and
		12 = 49/(49%5=4) 

	And so gcd(a,d) != 1.  

	This is my best guess as to what you're trying to say, since
	in number-theoretic notation these two statements don't make
	much sense:  division is not closed on the integers, and 
	(b mod c) is not a single integer, but an equivalence class.

							-Caj






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