• EatBorekYouWreck@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    But why would you divide the numbers to two sets? It is reasonable for when considering 2, but if you really want to generalize, for 3 you’d need to divide the numbers to three sets. One that divide by 3, one that has remainder of 1 and one that has remainder of 2. This way you have 3 symmetric sets of numbers and you can give them special names and find their special properties and assign importance to them. This can also be done for 5 with 5 symmetric sets, 7, 11, and any other prime number.

    • alvvayson@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Then you have one set that contains multiples of 3 and two sets that do not, so it is not symmetric.

      • rbhfd@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You’d have one set that are multiples of 3, one set that are multiples of 3 plus 1, and one stat that are multiples of 3 minus 1 (or plus 2)

    • Foofighter@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      Not sure about how relevant this in reality, but when it comes to alternating series, this might be relevant. For example the Fourier series expansion of cosine and other trig function?