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Subject:Re: idempotent From:jane <judydh -at- TOTAL -dot- NET> Date:Thu, 19 Aug 1999 10:51:19 -0400
>From Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary:
relating to or being a mathematical quantity which is not 0 and which
when applied to
itself under a give binary operation (as multiplication) equals itself;
also: relating to or
being and operation under which a mathematical quantity is idempotent.
So, the number 1 is idempotent. As for your sentence, Wittgenstein would
love it...I'm glad I'm not in your shoes. In fact, it looks like "we can
therefore say the skeletonisation is
>an idempotent operation" is unnecessary if the focus of the topic is on
skeletonisation, and not on idempotency. It doesn't really serve to
illuminate the concept in that bit of context you provided.
