Closure of exponentiation of real algebraic numbers.
from Ad4mWayn3@sh.itjust.works to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 31 Aug 14:46
https://sh.itjust.works/post/24507403

Given two real, nonzero algebraic numbers a and b, with a > 0 (so that it excludes complex numbers), is there any named subset of the reals S such that (a^b) belongs to S forall a,b? I know it’s not all the reals since there should be countably many a^b’s, since a,b are also countable.

#nostupidquestions

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deegeese@sopuli.xyz on 31 Aug 15:14 next collapse

Do your own homework, buddy.

NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de on 31 Aug 15:50 next collapse

Who says a and b are countable

Deestan@lemmy.world on 31 Aug 15:56 collapse

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_number

They’re given as algebraic, which are countably infinite since they can be mapped 1-to-1 with integers.

Septimaeus@infosec.pub on 31 Aug 16:19 next collapse

NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de on 31 Aug 16:49 collapse

I see. I missed that word in the question, and I didn’t remember that definition anyway.

ns1@feddit.uk on 31 Aug 16:26 collapse

Fun question! I don’t know the answer other than to say it’s not just the algebraics because of the Gelfond-Schneider constant

Are you sure this is well-defined? You say that a and b are algebraic but “closure” implies that they could also be any members of S. This might mess up your proof that it’s not all the reals if you do mean the closure.

Ad4mWayn3@sh.itjust.works on 31 Aug 18:33 collapse

My mistake, in that case it’s not the closure what I mean. But then how are those kinds of sets called?

ns1@feddit.uk on 01 Sep 07:07 collapse

You could say something like “the image of exponentiation over…” to mean the set of values created by applying the function once, but it sounds slightly clunky.

Looks like there aren’t really very many sets of mostly transcendental numbers that have names. Computational numbers and periods are two of them, I’d guess that both probably contain your set, so you could compare with those to see where it gets you.