• InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    It’s even worse, math uses arcane terms for things that in many other fields are basically just accepted.

    Galois fields? In hardware and software, those are just normal binary unsigned integers of a given bit length.

    I get that GFs came about first, but when they were later implemented for computers they weren’t usually (they are sometimes, mostly for carry less mul specifically, or when used for cryptography) called Galois fields, the behavior was just accepted as the default for digital logic.

    • MBM@lemmings.world
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      1 month ago

      The division operator of a Galois field (I prefer “finite field”, because it’s more descriptive) is nothing like the what computers usually use for unsigned integers. Like, if you’re working mod 5, then 3/2 = 4 (because 2 * 4 = 8 = 3 mod 5).