Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Properties of distances between adjacent vector elements and related functions

+3
−0

I'm exploring a function that takes a non-negative integer vector $$ \theta\in {\mathbb{N}_0}^4$$ and returns the modulus of each adjacent vector components, wrapping around:

$$ s:{\mathbb{N}_0}^4 \rightarrow {\mathbb{N}_0}^4 \\ $$$$ \begin{align*} & s(\boldsymbol{\theta}) = s\left(\begin{bmatrix} x \\ y \\ z \\ w \end{bmatrix} \right) = \begin{bmatrix} |y-x| \\ |z-y| \\ |w-z| \\ |x-w| \end{bmatrix} \end{align*} $$

Example:

$$ \begin{align*} & s\left(\begin{bmatrix} 6 \\ 2 \\ 15 \\ 7 \end{bmatrix} \right) = \begin{bmatrix} |2-6| \\ |15-2| \\ |7-15| \\ |6-7| \end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix} |-4| \\ |+13| \\ |-8| \\ |-1| \end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix} 4 \\ 13 \\ 8 \\ 1 \end{bmatrix} \end{align*} $$

Basic properties of $s$ that I can prove:

  • $ s \text{ is not linear} $
  • $ s(\boldsymbol{0}) = \boldsymbol{0} $
  • $ s(\lambda\boldsymbol{\theta}) = |\lambda|s(\boldsymbol{\theta}) $
  • Let $\boldsymbol\theta' = \boldsymbol\theta - \theta_{min}$, where $\theta_{min}$ is the smallest component of $\boldsymbol\theta$. Then $s(\boldsymbol\theta)=s(\boldsymbol\theta') $

In my experiments, I observed that the repeated application of $s$ converged to the zero vector for all sample inputs I tried: millions of unique $\boldsymbol{\theta}\in {\mathbb{N}_0}^4$

As a purely recreational exercise, my goal is to prove or disprove that this holds for all $\boldsymbol{\theta}$:

$ \forall_{\boldsymbol{\theta} \in {\mathbb{N}_0}^4} \exists_{n\ge 0} \space \space \overbrace{s \circ \ s \circ \dots s}^{n} (\boldsymbol{\theta}) = \boldsymbol{0} $

Now my questions:

  1. Is $s$ a common function in some domain or application?
  2. Which research keyworks would you recommend to find more about $s$ (or similar function)?

Search expressions like "adjacent element distance" and variations thereof didn't help much. These often lead to pages more on the implementation/coding side of the problem.

This is purely a recreational problem. There is no real application that I know of - but I would like to know. I'm not a professional mathematician. My background is computer science.

Thank you

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

0 comment threads

1 answer

+1
−0

I would describe your function $s$ is the (absolute value of) the discrete derivative of functions on 4 points, arranged cyclically. This is a special case of a bunch similar functions, often denoted like this: $\Delta_h f(x) = f(x+h) - f(x),$ for various h and kinds of functions/domains/ranges.

The vectors you're looking at can be thought of as specifying a function on $\{0,1,2,3\}$, with $f(0) = \theta_0, f(1) = \theta_1$, etc.

This framing actually makes your conjecture accessible with stuff you probably already know, if you think back to calculus. But you explicitly didn't ask for a solution to your problem, so I'll not say more.

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.

1 comment thread

Thank you @#63649. A hint like yours is exactly what I was looking for to be able to explore this fur... (1 comment)

Sign up to answer this question »