from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. A branch of mathematics in which symbols, usually letters of the alphabet, represent numbers or members of a specified set and are used to represent quantities and to express general relationships that hold for all members of the set.
- n. A set together with a pair of binary operations defined on the set. Usually, the set and the operations include an identity element, and the operations are commutative or associative.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. A system for computation using letters or other symbols to represent numbers, with rules for manipulating these symbols.
- n. The study of algebraic structures.
- n. A universal algebra.
- n. An algebraic structure consisting of a module of a commutative ring along with an additional binary operation that is bilinear.
- n. A collection of subsets of a given set, such that this collection contains the empty set, and the collection is closed under unions and complements (and thereby also under intersections and differences).
- n. One of several other types of mathematical structure.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. That branch of mathematics which treats of the relations and properties of quantity by means of letters and other symbols. It is applicable to those relations that are true of every kind of magnitude.
- n. A treatise on this science.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Formal mathematics; the analysis of equations; the art of reasoning about relations, more especially quantitative relations, by the aid of a compact and highly systematized notation.
- n. Any special system of notation adapted to the study of a special system of relationship: as, “it is an algebra upon an algebra,” Sylvester.
- n. A treatise on algebra.
- n. Its abbreviation is algebra
- n. Algebra of multiple units.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. the mathematics of generalized arithmetical operations
From the syntactic side, the free C-algebra B on a set X arises as a quotient of the term algebra formed from X (viewed as a set of variables) using the operation symbols and constants common to the algebras of C.
Indeed, the word "algebra" is derived from the title of this book: Kitab al-Jebr (The Book of Completion) in which he lays out for the first time the rules and steps of solving algebraic equations.
Wonderful goals and yet I can help but wonder if algebra is the best vehicle to accomplish these goals.
I'm trying to get you to be actively involved in your own education, to be independent and curious learners in mathematics, even if algebra is never going to be your favorite subject.
Like in algebra, we say "Let T be time and D be distance."
But state officials say the tests -- in algebra, English, biology and government -- are an important minimum requirement and have improved high school education.
While a poor kid is trying to work through an outdated textbook at the kitchen table, his affluent peer across town is being tutored in algebra in her own room.
Chances are, the algebra 2 teacher has a good idea of what it is really important for students to master in algebra 1.
Although your story about not knowing basic algebra is pretty scary ...
Trying to learn these concepts using only simple algebra is actually more difficult in my opinion.