i need a mathematical function F which is defined as F(x) = 0 if x equal to zero and F(x) = 1 if x is not equal to zero. can F(x) be represented in the form of a single mathematical expression in terms of x?
Mathematical function to check whether its parameter is zero or not
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functions
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0Anil has not returned since Feb 25, so no-one knows what he means by "mathematical expression". – 2011-07-23
2 Answers
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Knuth suggests using the Iverson bracket notation $[x\ne0]$ for that function. You can also try $|\mbox{sgn}(x)|$. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_function
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Any algorithm that does what you want will be dependent upon the F(x) you are working with. Some F's are easy-for x^2 you can take the integer sqrt of x, square it, and see if you get x back again. For x^x you could just store a table of them up to the largest number of interest and search the table. Unless you are doing arbitrary precision work it will be much less than 1000 entries.