adefinitemaybe comments on New Year's Predictions Thread - Less Wrong

18 Post author: MichaelVassar 30 December 2009 09:39PM

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Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 12 January 2010 06:09:51AM 1 point [-]

Could you explain this in greater detail? This way of using "modulo" bothers me significantly, and I think it's because I either don't know about one of the ways "modulo" is used in math, or I have an insufficiently deep understanding of the one way I do know that it's used.

Comment author: RobinZ 12 January 2010 01:14:59PM *  6 points [-]

In modulo arithmetic, adding or subtracting the base does not change the value. Thus, 12 modulo 9 is the same as 3 modulo 9. Thus, for example, "my iPhone is working great modulo the Wifi connection" implies that if you can subtract the base ("the Wifi connection") you can transform a description of the current state of my iPhone into "working great".

(For your amusement: modulo in the Jargon File. Epsilon is there too.)

Edit: Actually, in this case, you would have to add the base, because my Wifi isn't working, but the statement remains the same.