Wednesday, 26 June 2013

fields - What is it called if a vector space doesn't have an additive inverse?

so, you have, for any two members of the algebraic structure A and B and any nonnegative real values a, b:



two operations: * and +, such that



a*A + b*A = (a+b)*A is in the structure



A + B = B + A is in the structure



0*A + B = B



but there is no guarantee that X s.t.



X + A = B



is in the structure.




As an example, the set of 2-dimensional Cartesian vectors that are in the first quadrant (i.e., x>=0 and y>=0) has the properties that I want. You can add them, scale them, but if you try to subtract them, you might leave the first quadrant.



Thanks very much!

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