Saturday, November 22, 2008

/ / / (discrete) & ----- (continuous)

Wikipedia, mathematically speaking, has some things to say:

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Discrete mathematics, also called finite mathematics, is the study of mathematical structures that are fundamentally discrete, in the sense of not supporting or requiring the notion of continuity. Most, if not all, of the objects studied in finite mathematics are countable sets, such as integers, finite graphs, and formal languages. Discrete mathematics has become popular in recent decades because of its applications to computer science. Concepts and notations from discrete mathematics are useful to study or describe objects or problems in computer algorithms and programming languages. 

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In mathematics, a continuous function is a function for which, intuitively, small changes in the input result in small changes in the output. Otherwise, a function is said to be discontinuous. A continuous function with a continuous inverse function is called bicontinuous. An intuitive though imprecise (and inexact) idea of continuity is given by the common statement that a continuous function is a function whose graph can be drawn without lifting the chalk from the blackboard. 

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