Lunar arithmetic

Lunar arithmetic, formerly called dismal arithmetic,[1][2] is a version of arithmetic in which the
addition and multiplication operations on digits are defined as the max and min operations.
Thus, in lunar arithmetic,

and

The lunar arithmetic operations on nonnegative multidigit numbers are performed as in usual
arithmetic as illustrated in the following examples. The world of lunar arithmetic is restricted
to the set of nonnegative integers.

976 +
348
----
978 (adding digits column-wise)

976 ×
348
----
876 (multiplying the digits of 976 by 8)
444 (multiplying the digits of 976 by 4)
333 (multiplying the digits of 976 by 3)
------
34876 (adding digits column-wise)

The concept of lunar arithmetic was proposed by David Applegate, Marc LeBrun, and Neil
Sloane.[3]
In the general definition of lunar arithmetic, one considers numbers expressed in an arbitrary
base and define lunar arithmetic operations as the max and min operations on the digits
corresponding to the chosen base.[3] However, for simplicity, in the following discussion it will
be assumed that the numbers are represented using 10 as the base.

Properties of the lunar operations

A few of the elementary properties of the lunar operations are listed below.[3]

1. The lunar addition and multiplication operations satisfy the commutative and
associative laws.

2. The lunar multiplication distributes over the lunar addition.

3. The digit 0 is the identity under lunar addition. No non-zero number has an inverse under
lunar addition.

4. The digit 9 is the identity under lunar multiplication. No number different from 9 has an
inverse under lunar multiplication.

Some standard sequences

Even numbers

It may be noted that, in lunar arithmetic, and . The even

numbers are numbers of the form . The first few distinct even numbers under lunar
arithmetic are listed below:

These are the numbers whose digits are all less than or equal to 2.

Squares

A square number is a number of the form . So in lunar arithmetic, the first few squares
are the following.

Triangular numbers

A triangular number is a number of the form . The first few triangular lunar
numbers are:
Factorials

In lunar arithmetic, the first few values of the factorial are as follows:

Prime numbers

Sumsets and lunar multiplication

Magic squares of squares using lunar arithmetic

A magic square of squares is a magic square formed by squares of numbers. It is not known
whether there are magic square of square of order 3 with the usual addition and
multiplication of integers. However, it has been observed that, if we consider the lunar
arithmetic operations, there are an infinity of magic squares of squares of order 3. Here is an
example:[2]

See also

References

External links

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Last edited 6 months ago by Mignof