Modulo operator in decryption - math

I'm creating an encryptor/decryptor for ascii strings where I take the ascii value of a char, add 1 to it, then mod it by the highest ascii value so that I get a valid ascii char out.
The problem is the decryption.
Let's say that (a + b) % c = d
I know b, c, and d's values.
How do I get the a variables value out from that?

This is exactly the ROT1 substitution cipher. Subtract 1, and if less than lowest value (0 I assume, given how you're describing it), then add the highest value.
Using terms like "mod," while accurate, make this seem more complicated than it is. It's just addition on a ring. When you go past the last letter, you come back to the first letter and vice-versa. Once you put your head around how the math works, the equations should pop out. Basically, you just add or subtract as normal (add to encrypt, subtract to decrypt in this case), and at the end, mod "normalizes" you back onto the ring of legal values.

Use the inverse formula
a = (b - d) mod c
or in practice
a = (b - d + c) % c.
The term + c needs to be added as a safeguard because the % operator does not implement a true modulo in the negatives.

Let's assume that c is 2, d is 0 and b is 4.
Now we know that a must be 2... Or 4 actually.. or 6... Or any other even number.
You can't solve this problem, there are infinite solutions.

Related

DFA to mathematical notation

Let's say I have a DFA with alphabet {0,1} which basically accepts any strings as long as there is no consecutive 0's (at most one 0 at a time). How do I express this in a mathematical notation?
I was thinking of any number of 1's followed by either one or none 0's, then any number of 1's..... but couldn't figure out the appropriate mathematical notation for it.
My attempt but obviously incorrect since 1010 should be accepted but the notation does not indicate so:
As a regular expression you could write this as 1*(01+)*0?. Arbitrary many ones, then arbitrary many groups of exactly one zero followed by at least one one, and in the end possibly one zero. Nico already wrote as much in a comment. Personally I'd consider such a regular expression sufficiently formal to call it mathematical.
Now if you want to write this using exponents, you could do something like
L = {1a (0 11+bi)c 0d mod 2 | a,bi,c,d ∈ ℕ for 1≤i≤c}
Writing a bit of formula in the exponents has the great benefit that you don't have to split the place where you use the exponent and the place where you define the range. Here all my numbers are natural numbers (including zero). Adding one means at least one repetition. And the modulo 2 makes the exponent 0 or 1 to express the ? in the regular expression.
Of course, there is an implied assumption here, namely that the c serves as a kind of loop, but it doesn't repeat the same expression every time, but the bi changes for each iteration. The range of the i implies this interpretation, but it might be considered confusing or even incorrect nonetheless.
The proper solution here would be using some formal product notation using a big ∏ with a subscript i = 1 and a superscript c. That would indicate that for every i from 1 through c you want to compute the given expression (i.e. 011+bi) and concatenate all the resulting words.
You could also give a recursive definition: The minimal fixpoint of the following definition
L' = {1, 10} ∪ {1a 0 b | a ∈ ℕ, a > 0, b ∈ L'}
is the language of all words which begin with a 1 and satisfy your conditions. From this you can build
L = {ε, 0} ∪ L' ∪ {0 a | a ∈ L'}
so you add the empty word and the lone zero, then take all the words from L' in their unmodified form and in the form with a zero added in front.

F#: integer (%) integer - Is Calculated How?

So in my text book there is this example of a recursive function using f#
let rec gcd = function
| (0,n) -> n
| (m,n) -> gcd(n % m,m);;
with this function my text book gives the example by executing:
gcd(36,116);;
and since the m = 36 and not 0 then it ofcourse goes for the second clause like this:
gcd(116 % 36,36)
gcd(8,36)
gcd(36 % 8,8)
gcd(4,8)
gcd(8 % 4,4)
gcd(0,4)
and now hits the first clause stating this entire thing is = 4.
What i don't get is this (%)percentage sign/operator or whatever it is called in this connection. for an instance i don't get how
116 % 36 = 8
I have turned this so many times in my head now and I can't figure how this can turn into 8?
I know this is probably a silly question for those of you who knows this but I would very much appreciate your help the same.
% is a questionable version of modulo, which is the remainder of an integer division.
In the positive, you can think of % as the remainder of the division. See for example Wikipedia on Euclidean Divison. Consider 9 % 4: 4 fits into 9 twice. But two times four is only eight. Thus, there is a remainder of one.
If there are negative operands, % effectively ignores the signs to calculate the remainder and then uses the sign of the dividend as the sign of the result. This corresponds to the remainder of an integer division that rounds to zero, i.e. -2 / 3 = 0.
This is a mathematically unusual definition of division and remainder that has some bad properties. Normally, when calculating modulo n, adding or subtracting n on the input has no effect. Not so for this operator: 2 % 3 is not equal to (2 - 3) % 3.
I usually have the following defined to get useful remainders when there are negative operands:
/// Euclidean remainder, the proper modulo operation
let inline (%!) a b = (a % b + b) % b
So far, this operator was valid for all cases I have encountered where a modulo was needed, while the raw % repeatedly wasn't. For example:
When filling rows and columns from a single index, you could calculate rowNumber = index / nCols and colNumber = index % nCols. But if index and colNumber can be negative, this mapping becomes invalid, while Euclidean division and remainder remain valid.
If you want to normalize an angle to (0, 2pi), angle %! (2. * System.Math.PI) does the job, while the "normal" % might give you a headache.
Because
116 / 36 = 3
116 - (3*36) = 8
Basically, the % operator, known as the modulo operator will divide a number by other and give the rest if it can't divide any longer. Usually, the first time you would use it to understand it would be if you want to see if a number is even or odd by doing something like this in f#
let firstUsageModulo = 55 %2 =0 // false because leaves 1 not 0
When it leaves 8 the first time means that it divided you 116 with 36 and the closest integer was 8 to give.
Just to help you in future with similar problems: in IDEs such as Xamarin Studio and Visual Studio, if you hover the mouse cursor over an operator such as % you should get a tooltip, thus:
Module operator tool tip
Even if you don't understand the tool tip directly, it'll give you something to google.

Efficient Multiplication of Varying-Length #s [Conceptual]

EDIT
So it seems I "underestimated" what varying length numbers meant. I didn't even think about situations where the operands are 100 digits long. In that case, my proposed algorithm is definitely not efficient. I'd probably need an implementation who's complexity depends on the # of digits in each operands as opposed to its numerical value, right?
As suggested below, I will look into the Karatsuba algorithm...
Write the pseudocode of an algorithm that takes in two arbitrary length numbers (provided as strings), and computes the product of these numbers. Use an efficient procedure for multiplication of large numbers of arbitrary length. Analyze the efficiency of your algorithm.
I decided to take the (semi) easy way out and use the Russian Peasant Algorithm. It works like this:
a * b = a/2 * 2b if a is even
a * b = (a-1)/2 * 2b + a if a is odd
My pseudocode is:
rpa(x, y){
if x is 1
return y
if x is even
return rpa(x/2, 2y)
if x is odd
return rpa((x-1)/2, 2y) + y
}
I have 3 questions:
Is this efficient for arbitrary length numbers? I implemented it in C and tried varying length numbers. The run-time in was near-instant in all cases so it's hard to tell empirically...
Can I apply the Master's Theorem to understand the complexity...?
a = # subproblems in recursion = 1 (max 1 recursive call across all states)
n / b = size of each subproblem = n / 1 -> b = 1 (problem doesn't change size...?)
f(n^d) = work done outside recursive calls = 1 -> d = 0 (the addition when a is odd)
a = 1, b^d = 1, a = b^d -> complexity is in n^d*log(n) = log(n)
this makes sense logically since we are halving the problem at each step, right?
What might my professor mean by providing arbitrary length numbers "as strings". Why do that?
Many thanks in advance
What might my professor mean by providing arbitrary length numbers "as strings". Why do that?
This actually change everything about the problem (and make your algorithm incorrect).
It means than 1234 is provided as 1,2,3,4 and you cannot operate directly on the whole number. You need to analyze your algorithm in terms of #additions, #multiplications, #divisions.
You should expect a division to be a bit more expensive than a multiplication, and a multiplication to be lot more expensive than an addition. So a good algorithm try to reduce the number of divisions and multiplications.
Check out the Karatsuba algorithm, (ps don't copy it that's not what your teacher want) is one of the fastest for this specification.
Add 3): Native integers are limited in how large (or small) numbers they can represent (32- or 64-bit integers for example). To represent arbitrary length numbers you can choose strings, because then you are not really limited by this. The problem is then, of course, that your arithmetic units are not really made to add strings ;-)

Why is modulus defined the way it is in programming languages

I'm not asking about the definition but rather why the language creators chose to define modulus with asymmetric behavior in C++. (I think Java too)
Suppose I want to find the least number greater than or equal to n that is divisible by f.
If n is positive, then I do:
if(n % f)
ans = n + f - n % f;
If n is negative:
ans = n - n % f;
Clearly, this definition is not the most expedient when dealing with negative and positive numbers. So why was it defined like this? In what case does it yield expediency?
Because it's using "modulo 2 arithmetic", where each binary digit is treated independently of the other. Look at the example on "division" here
You're mistaken. When n is negative, C++ allows the result of the modulus operator to be either negative or positive as long as the results from % and / are consistent, so for any given a and b, the expression (a/b)*b + a%b will always yield a. C99 requires that the result of a % b will have the same sign as a. Some other languages (e.g., Python) require that the sign of a % b have the same sign as b.
This means the expression you've given for negative n is not actually required to work in C++. When/if n%f yields a positive number (even though n is negative), it will give ans that's less than n.

Horizontal and Vertical Parity check codes

I was reading about horizontal and vertical parity check codes. One of the properties of these codes is that the final parity check (the lower right bit) is equal to modulo 2 sum of horizontal parity checks and also equal to modulo 2 of sum of vertical parity checks.
I did not understand, why this is true. I can see them in the examples but i really cant come up with any formal/intuitive proof about the same.
Any help/hints will be appreciated.
Thanks,
Chander
Each row and column is sum modulo 2. And result is sum of all numbers mod 2. It does not matter how you count.
Rule is:
((a mod c) + (b mod c)) mod c == (a+b) mod c
This is because every wrong bit propagates the parity either horizontally either vertically..
think about having your matrix of bits:
A B C D
E F G H
I J K L
M N O P
now some of these bits are wrongly transmitted, so you have a total of y errors that are layed around but you don't know where inside the matrix.
If you go by rows (so you calculate horizontal parity) you will be sure that the sum of every row parity modulo 2 will be 0 if you have an even number of errors in that row, 1 otherwise. You will be also sure of the fact that you are considering all of them since you do this work for every row.
Finally if you suppose to correct a bit from a row and alter another one in another one the final result won't change, since you basically remove 1 from a rows to add it elsewhere.
Then think about doing it by columns, you will end up with the same exact behaviour, the only difference is that errors can be distribuited in a different way but adding vertical parity together modulo 2 will take into account same considerations. Since the number of total errors is the same it will be an even number or an odd number either for rows and columns.

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