Rex Kerr
1 min readFeb 23, 2022

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Wait, what? So you reject the integers as well as the imaginary numbers, so “-25” necessarily means the unary minus operator applied to the natural number 25, yielding a symbolic representation that has no sensible interpretation on its own as a number?

Okayyyy, let’s keep going with this then. If you have operators p and q, and their inverses b and d, defined on the natural numbers, under what conditions do the operators commute with their inverses? That is, if b(p(x)) = p(b(x)) = x, and d(q(x)) = q(d(x)) = x, for what operators is b(q(p(x)) = q(x) and all other variants like that.

Or, in the language of function composition, where 1 is the identity function and . is the function composition operator, given b.p = p.b = 1 and d.q = q.d = 1, when is b.q.p = q, p.q.b = q, d.p.q = p, and q.p.d = p?

In particular, you are claiming the this is true when b = square root, q = unary minus, and p = square, yes?

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Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

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