Talk:Value (mathematics)

message: Please help expand. Dullfig 19:07, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

message: Should it be clarified that a value does not need to be a number?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.120.151.152 (talk) 14:46, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Values' as numbers 

message: I am not happy about this stub.  To say that 'functions map a set of values to another set of values' does not at all help the reader to understand the conventional distinction between function arguments (input) and function values (output).  I strongly suspect that the person who formerly made a redirection to function had this distinction in mind.  (By the way, this is the reason why real-valued function refers only to the range, not to the domain.)  At the same time, I do recognise that we mathematicians tend to use the same terms in different meanings in different contexts; and 'values' of variables certainly are mentioned.  In some common situations (e.g., with existing and non-zero Jacobians), you do not need to distinguish input from output very carefully; and the description supra might be more apt.
I would like to rewrite this in a more 'conventional' manner.  Actually, I found the stub while looking for sensible references from an improved version of binary operation; but was disappointed.JoergenB 12:23, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Values' as arguments 

message: What does vaule mean
:-- I suppose it is a typo for value/poo :-)  However, there are problems with this poo(supra).JoergenB 12:23, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Headline text 

message: This would be a good place to introduce the concept of value function, which currently redirects to the Bellman equation page. Rinconsoleao (talk) 13:51, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Value function 

message: WP:RELIABLE requires inline sources for all challenged material. NE Ent 15:25, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The content that you have deleted is not challenged. If you think that some sentence is challenging, explain why in the talk page, and tag it with , but do not destroy relevant content. D.Lazard (talk) 15:32, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm challenging it. Please provide sources. NE Ent 16:04, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  unsourced information 

message: :The article as is doesn't define the meaning of "value".
:"A value of a function is the result associated to a value of its argument "
:Poor English at best.  I presume you mean the,
:"A function maps an argument to a value."
:So suppose I have a function define by an equation,
:: f(x) = x + 5
:Now f(7) should return the value of the expression 7 + 5.  But we have not defined what a value is.
:So we are defining a function as something that returns a value, and a value as that which a function returns.  The argument is circular and tells us nothing about what a value is.  This logic failure is there in the original Wolfram reference.
Thepigdog (talk) 17:28, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Generally Wikipedia doesn't provide definitions per se -- that's Wiktionary's. The disambiguation page Value provides links to the corresponding wiktionary definitions. NE Ent 23:10, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  definition 

message: But remember the audience.  The reader is important not you.  If you are correct you have not explained yourself.  And you have not answered the points above.
Hey its your page now, do as you will.  Enjoy yourself.  Kind regards Thepigdog (talk) 11:33, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Do what you like 

message: The book "Introduction to Modern Mathematics" describes a value as the output of a function.  The input is the argument.  That is very different from the modern understanding of a value in computer science.  The meaning of the word seems to have morphed over time.  To me "value" means some information (data) representing the state of something.  The value is the representation, either as a series of bits, or digits or characters.  If it is in a variable or is the output or input of a function is irrelevant.  So these are values,
* 24 AUG 2009
* "a string"
* 3.141596
* 92
* \lambda x.x
However these have values but are not values,
* 46 * 2
* f(5)
* (\lambda x.x)\ 5
We may as well be being talking French and English.  I can crawl back to the computer science realm, but I haven't found a mathematical definition of a computer science "value".  I am expecting to see a definition,
: X = Y \iff \operatorname{value}[X] \equiv \operatorname{value}[Y]
meaning that a value is a property of an expression which is the identical if the expressions are equal but not otherwise.  The term "identical" means equal, in the domain of representations of values.
I am also expecting to see the following common axiom of mathematical systems.
:  X \equiv X \implies X = X
Meaning that two equivalent expressions must have the same value.  Alternatively, every expression has one and only one value.  How strange and confusing the terminology has become.
Thepigdog (talk) 02:51, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Added a reference

message: The phrase "also called the variable" is ambiguous. The value and the argument are both variable with most functions.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Montananevadagirl (talk • contribs) 12:31, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Also