# Examples of common false beliefs in mathematics

The first thing to say is that this is not the same as the question about interesting mathematical mistakes. I am interested about the type of false beliefs that many intelligent people have while they are learning mathematics, but quickly abandon when their mistake is pointed out -- and also in why they have these beliefs. So in a sense I am interested in commonplace mathematical mistakes.

Let me give a couple of examples to show the kind of thing I mean. When teaching complex analysis, I often come across people who do not realize that they have four incompatible beliefs in their heads simultaneously. These are

(i) a bounded entire function is constant;
(ii) $\sin z$ is a bounded function;
(iii) $\sin z$ is defined and analytic everywhere on $\mathbb{C}$;
(iv) $\sin z$ is not a constant function.

Obviously, it is (ii) that is false. I think probably many people visualize the extension of $\sin z$ to the complex plane as a doubly periodic function, until someone points out that that is complete nonsense.

A second example is the statement that an open dense subset $U$ of $\mathbb{R}$ must be the whole of $\mathbb{R}$. The "proof" of this statement is that every point $x$ is arbitrarily close to a point $u$ in $U$, so when you put a small neighbourhood about $u$ it must contain $x$.

Since I'm asking for a good list of examples, and since it's more like a psychological question than a mathematical one, I think I'd better make it community wiki. The properties I'd most like from examples are that they are from reasonably advanced mathematics (so I'm less interested in very elementary false statements like $(x+y)^2=x^2+y^2$, even if they are widely believed) and that the reasons they are found plausible are quite varied.

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I have to say this is proving to be one of the more useful CW big-list questions on the site... – Qiaochu Yuan May 6 '10 at 0:55
The answers below are truly informative. Big thanks for your question. I have always loved your post here in MO and wordpress. – Unknown May 22 '10 at 9:04
wouldn't it be great to compile all the nice examples (and some of the most relevant discussion / comments) presented below into a little writeup? that would make for a highly educative and entertaining read. – Suvrit Sep 20 '10 at 12:39
It's a thought -- I might consider it. – gowers Oct 4 '10 at 20:13
Meta created tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/1165/… – user9072 Oct 8 '11 at 14:27

## 217 Answers

The "conditional Vitali convergence theorem": Let $X_n$ be a uniformly integrable sequence of random variables with $X_n \to X$ almost surely, and $\mathcal{G}$ a sub-$\sigma$-field. Then $\mathbb{E}[X_n \mid \mathcal{G}] \to \mathbb{E}[X \mid \mathcal{G}]$ almost surely (FALSE).

I believed this one until I read Uniformly integrable sequence such that a.s. limit and conditional expectation do not commute. It is particularly startling because the conditional versions of the monotone convergence theorem, the dominated convergence theorem, and Fatou's lemma are all true!

What is true is that $\mathbb{E}[X_n \mid \mathcal{G}] \to \mathbb{E}[X \mid \mathcal{G}]$ in $L^1$, so you do have a subsequence converging almost surely.

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Here is a false belief I had. Let $f:X \to Y$ be a map of topological spaces having the property that for every finite CW complex $K$, the induced map $f_{\ast}:[K,X] \to [K,Y]$, on unpointed homotopy classes of maps, is a bijection. Then $f$ is a weak homotopy equivalence (that is, it induces isomorphisms on all homotopy groups relative to all basepoints). A counterexample is given by the stabilization map $B \Sigma_{\infty}\xrightarrow{+1} B \Sigma_{\infty}$, which is not an isomorphism on $\pi_1$.

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Although the original intent of this question seems to have long since evaporated, I can't help asking: is this really a "common false belief"? – Yemon Choi Feb 17 '15 at 1:24

Some undergraduate common false beliefs that I found

(1) If $H$ is a subgroup of $\mathbb{Z}$ and $H$ and $\mathbb{Z}$ are isomorphic, then $H = \mathbb{Z}$;

(2) In a metric space every two open balls are homeomorphic;

(3) For $p \in [1, \infty]$, $L^p(X, \mathfrak{M}, \mu) = \left\{ f \in \mathbb{C}^X : \int_X |f|^p \, d \mu < \infty \right\}$ is a $\mathbb{C}$-normed vector space, with the norm $\lVert f \rVert_p = (\int_X |f|^p \, d \mu)^{1/p}$.

Belief (1) is very naive, for every nontrivial subgroup of $\mathbb{Z}$ is of the form $n \mathbb{Z}$, all of them isomorphic with $\mathbb{Z}$. For (2) people tend to think of normed vector spaces and forgets the discrete metric spaces. For (3) some people just forget that one have to consider the quotient space, where the classes $[f]=[g]$ iff $f=g$ $\mu$-almost everywhere.

Belief (1) is very naive, because every nontrivial subgroup of $\mathbb{Z}$ is of the form $n \mathbb{Z}$, all of them isomorphic to $\mathbb{Z}$. For (2) people tend to think of normed vector spaces and they forget the discrete metric spaces. For (3) some people just forget that one have to consider the quotient space, where the classes $[f]=[g]$ iff $f=g$ $\ \mu$-almost everywhere.

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Well, in (1) I think I can replace $\mathbb{Z}$ by an arbitrary group $G$, because $\mathbb{Z}$ do not come in mind so quickly. – Gustavo Jan 8 at 4:03

Here's one that doesn't seem to be listed here: That ZFC isn't vulnerable to Russell's paradox because it has an axiom which implies that sets cannot be elements of themselves.

This one should be obviously false given even a moment's thought -- you cannot get rid of a paradox by adding axioms! But I've seen it repeated over and over.

The correct statement, of course, is that ZFC isn't vulnerable to Russell's paradox because it doesn't have the axiom of unrestricted comprehension; and that while ZFC does have an axiom which implies that all sets are well-founded, this is irrelevant to Russell's paradox. (It just means that the set of all sets which are not elements of themselves, if it existed, would happen to also be the set of all sets.)

Sometimes this is stated in an ambiguous way that allows for the charitable reading that modern set theory prevents Russell's paradox by preventing one from talking about a set being an element of itself, which is how Russell and Whitehead fixed the problem. But Principia Mathematica isn't exactly "modern set theory"; and I've seen this stated the blatantly wrong way often enough that I'm not too inclined to be charitable about it.

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False Belief: "The suspension spectrum map from spaces to (edit: symmetric) spectra preserves smash-products"

The facts that one denotes the smash product of spectra and the smash product of a space with a spectrum (levelwise) with the same $\wedge$ and tends to leave away the $\Sigma^\infty$ when one embeds a space into spectra are also not helpful in getting used to the harsh reality that the above is wrong.

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Yay! 100th answer! – Peter Arndt Oct 4 '10 at 21:33
I don't see that this qualifies as a false belief. In order for the question of whether it is true or false to even be meaningful, you have to first commit yourself to one of the many different notions of spectrum, not to mention smash product of spectra. – Tom Goodwillie Oct 5 '10 at 0:35
True. I meant symmetric spectra with the smash product coming from their description as modules over the symmetric sequence of spheres. – Peter Arndt Oct 5 '10 at 10:52

"It cannot be shown without some form of AC that the union (or disjoint union) of countably many countable sets is countable. I have a countably infinite set X of countably infinite sets. Therefore, the union of X cannot be shown to be countable without Choice."

The fallacy is that in many cases of interest, it is possible to exhibit an explicit counting of every element of X. In such a case a counting of X by antidiagonals is easily constructed. The usual counting of the rationals is an example of this.

I think this may even be an example of a more general phenomenon of "people think AC is necessary for a certain construction, but in fact it turns out not to be necessary for the example they have in mind". For example, AC is necessary to find a maximal ideal in an arbitrary ring ... but it isn't if you're prepared to assume the ring is Noetherian.

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If "Noetherian" is defined by the ascending chain condition or by requiring all ideals to be finitely generated, then in order to deduce the existence of maximal ideals, you still need a weak form of the axiom of choice. The usual argument uses the axiom of dependent choice. (Of course, if you define "Noetherian" to mean that every set of ideals has a maximal element, then deducing the existence of maximal ideals is a choiceless triviality.) A good reference is "Six impossible rings" by Wilfrid Hodges (J. Algebra 31 (1974) 218-244). – Andreas Blass Oct 22 '10 at 15:29
Thanks Andreas! I had a feeling there was a technicality somewhere there, but couldn't remember what it was. As a philosophical point I personally think that of course in the absence of AC you want to define Noetherian so that my original statement is true, but admittedly that's a harder sell than my countable-sets example. – Karol Nov 16 '10 at 21:06

If a matrix $A$ is self-adjoint/skew-self-adjoint with respect to a symmetric bilinear form, then it is diagonalizable.

True for matrices over $\mathbb{R}$, with respect to a positive definite inner product.

False over other fields. For example, over $\mathbb{C}$, $\left( \begin{smallmatrix} 1 & i \\ i & -1 \end{smallmatrix} \right)$ and $\left( \begin{smallmatrix} 0 & 1 & i \\ -1 & 0 & 0 \\ -i & 0 & 0 \end{smallmatrix} \right)$ are nilpotent, but self-adjoint and skew self-adjoint respectively with respect to the standard inner product.

False for other nondegenerate symmetric bilinear forms: $\left( \begin{smallmatrix} 1 & 1 \\ -1 & -1 \end{smallmatrix} \right)$ and $\left( \begin{smallmatrix} 0 & -1 & -1 \\ 1 & 0 & 0 \\ -1 & 0 & 0 \end{smallmatrix} \right)$ are nilpotent, but self-adjoint and skew self-adjoint respectively with respect to $\left( \begin{smallmatrix} 1 & 0 \\ 0 & -1 \end{smallmatrix} \right)$ and $\left( \begin{smallmatrix} 1 & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & 1 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & -1 \end{smallmatrix} \right)$.

You can exponentiate the skew-self-adjoint matrices to get examples of matrices preserving a nondegenerate symmetric bilinear form, with Jordan blocks of the form $\left( \begin{smallmatrix} 1 & 1 \\ 0 & 1 \end{smallmatrix} \right)$.

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You seem to have a different definition of "the standard inner product on $\mathbb{C}^n$" than I do. I think that phrase normally refers to the familiar positive definite sesquilinear form, with respect to which self-adjoint matrices are indeed diagonalizable. – Mark Meckes Jan 28 '11 at 16:46
But that's not a bilinear form. And it has no generalization to other fields (what is it on $\overline{\mathbb{F}_p}$?). How can it be standard? :) I certainly agree that people should know that matrices which are self-adjoint with respect to the standard sesquilinear form are diagonalizable. – David Speyer Jan 28 '11 at 17:51
Of course it's not bilinear -- an "inner product" on a complex vector space is defined to be sesquilinear, not bilinear -- I've spent a lot of time trying to get my linear algebra students to remember that. The failure of such a form to generalize to other fields is indeed sad, but I think the richness of Hilbert space theory helps to make up for that disappointment. :) – Mark Meckes Jan 28 '11 at 21:24

In ${\mathbb F}_p^\times$, the non-squares are the opposite of the squares. In other words, $a$ is square iff $-a$ is not a square.

This is a confusion with the facts that the kernel of $x\mapsto x^2$ is $\{1,-1\}$ and the subgroup of squares has index $2$.

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For awhile, I used to think:
If $depth\ M\ge depth\ N$ then $depth\ M_p\ge depth\ N_p$; for any prime ideal $p$ and finite R-modules $M$ and $N$ (Which is not true).

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I had in mind that a $0$-sphere is only one point, but it is false, it is a collection of two points: $$\mathbb{S}^0 = \{ x \in \mathbb{R} \ \ | \ \ ||x||=1 \} = \{-1,1\}$$

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Exact. Moreover, if it were connected, its suspension $\mathbb S^1$ would be simply connected. – ACL Apr 21 at 6:23

A polynomial $p(x)$ of degree $n$, with coefficients in a commutative ring $R$, has at most $n$ roots, counting multiplicity. This is true if $R$ is an integral domain, but it can fail in the presence of zero divisors.

For instance, $p(x) = x^2+5x$ has four solutions when $R = \mathbb{Z}/6\mathbb{Z}$. I realized this mistake when a colleague asked me about factorization over a non-commutative ring, and I realized that I did not even know what would happen in the presence of zero-divisors.

This does motivate a question I have not found an answer to: is the number of solutions of $p(x)$ bounded by a function of the degree and the characteristic of the ring?

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To answer your last question, $x^2-1$ has an infinite number of roots in $k^{\mathbb{N}}$ for any nonzero ring $k$. So, no. – Gro-Tsen Apr 20 at 17:00
Doesn't it only have one solution in $k^\mathbb{N}$ if $k$ has characteristic 2, @Gro-Tsen? – Omar Antolín-Camarena Apr 20 at 17:36
@OmarAntolín-Camarena Oh right, what I wanted to write was $x^2-x$, and I got confused between "idempotent" and "one-potent"(?). But of course $x^2-1$ also works provided, as you point out, that $1\neq -1$ in $k$. – Gro-Tsen Apr 20 at 20:31

I don't think I've seen it in here:

Every vector space has a non-trivial dual space ($L^p$ for $0 < p < 1$ was a counter-example only mentioned during one of the classes in measure theory)

And of course there's the common false belief of people outside of mathematics that "mathematicians work with numbers and formulae all day long" :)

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Well, it is true that every vector space has a dual space, even $L^{1/2}$... and it is even true that every topological vector space has a continuous dual space... What you mean is that it is not true that every topological vector space has a non-trivial continuous dual space (or, that the continuous dual of a topological vector space does not necessarily separate points) – Mariano Suárez-Alvarez Jul 7 '10 at 18:54
You are indeed correct. I'll do better not to dismiss the trivial case the next time. – Asaf Karagila Jul 7 '10 at 19:31

Fans: (related to the one of polytopes written above) all convex cones are rational, i.e. one would expect that a line would eventually hit a point in the lattice. It is obviously not true, just take the one-dimensional cone generated by $(1,\sqrt{2})$. A similar one was thinking that if I rotate the cone a bit, I can always make it rational.

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reminds me of the curious fact that some circles in the plane, too, have no points in $\mathbb Q^2$. (proven simply by cardinality!) – AndrewLMarshall Oct 4 '10 at 19:21

The assumption that a cubic surface expressed as a foliation of Weierstrass curves cannot be rational, because a general Weierstrass curve is not rational.

I've seen this false assumption more than once on sci.math over the years. But there are simple counterexamples, such as:

$(x + y) (x^2 + y^2) = z^2$

On defining $u = x/y$ and $v = z/y$ one obtains $y (u + 1) (u^2 + 1) = v^2$, and hence x, y, z as rational functions of u, v.

I'd love to have a reference to a procedure for calculating the geometric genus and algebraic genus of surfaces like this, because they are rational if and only if both these quantities are zero, and for other cubic surfaces that interest me it would save a lot of fruitless hacking around trying to find a rational solution that probably doesn't exist! Are there any symbolic algebra packages that can do this?

I mean for example is $x y (x y + 1) (x + y) = z^2$ rational? I'm almost sure it isn't; but how can one be sure?

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This might not be common, but I once believed the following.

Let $A, B$ be integers, and define a sequence by the linear recurrence $s_n = A s_{n-1} + B s_{n-2}$ with the base case $s_0 = 0$, $s_1 = 1$. Two important special cases are the Fibonacci sequence ($A = B = 1$) and the sequence $s_n = 2^n - 1$ (where $A = 3$, $B = -2$). Then, for any integers $n$ and $k$, $\gcd(s_n, s_k) = s_{\gcd(n,k)}$.

This is true in the two mentioned special cases, so it's tempting to believe it's true in general. But there's a counterexample: $A = B = k = 2$, $n = 3$.

Update: corrected the powers of two minus one example from B = 2 to B = -2. Thanks to Harry Altman.

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Quick correction, that should be A=3, B=-2 for 2^n-1. – Harry Altman Apr 7 '11 at 21:23

If every collection of disjoint open sets in a topological space is at most countable, then the space is separable

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Something I was sure about until earlier today:

Suppose $\kappa$ is an $\aleph$ number, then $AC_\kappa$ is equivalent to $W_\kappa$, namely the universe holds that the product of $\kappa$ many sets is non-empty if and only if every cardinality is either of size less than $\kappa$ or has a subset of cardinality $\kappa$.

In fact this is only true if you assume full $AC$, and $(\forall \kappa) AC_\kappa$ doesn't even imply $W_{\aleph_1}$, I was truly shocked.

Furthermore, $W_\kappa$ doesn't even imply $AC_\kappa$ in most cases.

The strongest psychological implication is that most people actually think of the well-ordering principle as a the "correct form" of choice, when it is actually Dependent Choice (limited to $\kappa$, or unbounded) which is the "proper" form, that is $DC_\kappa$ implies both $AC_\kappa$ and $W_\kappa$.

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How common is this misconception? – Thierry Zell Apr 17 '11 at 3:08
@Thierry: For the past couple of weeks I spent a lot time considering models without choice, not only I held that misconception but not once anyone corrected me about it - grad students and professors alike. – Asaf Karagila Apr 17 '11 at 6:09

A few mistakes I remember:

• The quotient groups $\frac{G}{N}$ and $\frac{H}{K}$ are isomorphic if $G \thicksim H$ and $N\thicksim K$.
• A closed interval of a complete lattice is a complete sublattice.
• Two homeomorphic topologies on a set are the same.
• The set of all compatible uniformities of a topological group forms a complete lattice.
• The trace of the identity matrix is 1.
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A closed interval of a complete lattice does form a lattice that is complete, right? So that the mistake is that sups and infs in the interval (particularly the sup and inf over the empty set) are not necessarily computed as they would be in the ambient complete lattice; is that what you have in mind? – Todd Trimble Sep 6 '15 at 1:47
Yes‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌. – user47958 Sep 6 '15 at 1:55

Most people that study Riemannian geometry for their first time make the following assumption at some point: "Let $(e_1,\dots,e_n)$ be a local orthonormal frame of $TM$ such that all Lie brackets $[e_i,e_j]$ vanish..."

This one is not so common (maybe special to me), but here we go: "$\mathbb{RP}^\infty$ and $\mathbb{CP}^\infty$ are Eilenberg-Mac Lane spaces, so $\mathbb{HP}^\infty$ is one, too."

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(1) All Lebesgue-null sets are countable, or are strongly measure zero. (2) The following,verbatim, was a Q in American Mathematical Monthly : " A student asserted that any uncountable real set has a closed uncountable subset. Is this true ?" .

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For $p$ prime and the chain of embeddings $\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z} \hookrightarrow \mathbb{Z}/p^2\mathbb{Z} \hookrightarrow \cdots$ given by multiplication by $p$, then $\bigcup_n \mathbb{Z}/p^n\mathbb{Z}$ is not the group of $p$-adic integers $\mathbb{Z}_p$, but its Pontryagin dual, the Prüfer $p$-group $\mathbb{Z}(p^{\infty})$.

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Is that actually a common false belief? After all, $\mathbb{Z}_p$ is uncountable, as everyone realizes! – Todd Trimble Mar 5 '15 at 14:25
"$\mathbb{Z}_p$ is countable" is also a false belief for people who didn't really read the definition of $\mathbb{Z}_p$, but I don't know how much it is common. – Sebastien Palcoux Mar 5 '15 at 14:34
It's hard for me to believe it's at all common. I wasn't the downvoter, but I think it would be better if answers were rooted either in instances that can be found in the literature, or widely encountered in one's experience as an instructor. – Todd Trimble Mar 5 '15 at 14:52

This might not be common, but it gave me a headache once. I'll delete if it gets heavily downvoted.

I once had to think really hard about a contradiction in the great scheme of things that followed from my unwitting assumption that if $f$ was a function from a semigroup to a semigroup, then if its kernel was a congruence, $f$ had to be a homomorphism. I encountered a function whose kernel clearly was a congruence but which clearly wasn't a homomorphism, and it took about an hour's walk in a park for my vague notions and incoherent thought to produce the necessary realization.

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Anytime I wanted to write an answer to this question, I doubted maybe it is not as common as worthy of mentioning here. In fact, I am also not sure how common is the false belief that I observed today in a PDE class. I didn't observe that in many years of teaching calculus, but today four or five students in a small PDE class when calculating a definite integral by parts only applied the limits of the integral to the "second" integral, that is:

$$\int_{a}^b{f(x) g'(x) dx}=f(x) g(x) - \int_{a}^b{f'(x) g(x) dx}$$

Haven't I observed well enough in my calculus classes?

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Definitely integrals are numbers and $f(x)g(x)$ is a function of variable $x$. Formula as written is something very strange. – Fedor Petrov Apr 20 at 18:58
@FedorPetrov More strange is that most students don't see such a very strange something :) – Amir Asghari Apr 20 at 19:50

While this example was already mentioned by Skopenkov in a comment, here it is, explicitly:

If $G\times X\to X$ is a free continuous action of a compact metrizable group on a compact metrizable space $X$, then $X\to X/G$ is a principal $G$-bundle.

This is true if $G$ is a Lie group (Gleason) and, more generally, for proper Lie group actions on locally compact spaces (Palais), but false in general (the example is essentially due to Kolmogorov), see:

R. F. Williams, A useful functor and three famous examples in topology. Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 106 (1963) 319–329.

In this example, $\dim(X/G)=2, \dim(X)=1$.

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Way late to the party...

"$\mathrm{polymod}\ p$ and $\mathrm{mod}\ p$ are the same thing."

And it's cousin: "$\forall{x}, f(x) \cong g(x) \pmod{q} \implies f(x) = g(x)$"

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What does polymod mean? – darij grinberg Oct 20 '10 at 11:47
Either the cousin needs a bit more detail if it is to be false, it is quite naive! – Mariano Suárez-Alvarez Oct 20 '10 at 18:25
Probably I understand what this means: if $f(x)=0\pmod 2$ for all $x$, then $f=0$ over $\mathbb F_2$. This is similar to my second example: mathoverflow.net/questions/23478/… – zhoraster Oct 20 '10 at 18:33
Consequently, there are only $4$ polynomials over $\mathbb F_2$ Isn't this convenient? :-) – zhoraster Oct 20 '10 at 18:40
$\mathrm{polymod}$ is "polynomial mod". Two polynomials are congruent $\mathrm{polymod} p$ iff the coefficients each power of the variable are congruent $\pmod{p}$. The equivalence classes are sets of polynomials where each coefficient ranges over an equivalence class $\pmod{p}$. For the cousin, there are many local/globals but they all seem to require additional conditions (q.v. Hensel lifting). I think the set from which $x$ was chosen was left unspecified because this "imprecise mental abbreviation" pops up at various levels of sophistication each with a different such set. – Anonymous Oct 23 '10 at 15:22

## From Keith Devlin

"Multiplication is not the same as repeated addition", as put forward in Devlin's MAA column.

I'm not really sure how I feel about this one; I might be one of the unfortunate souls who are still prey to that delusion.

## Caution

In case you missed it, the column ended up spilling a lot of electronic ink (as evidenced in this follow-up column), so I don't believe it would be wise to start yet a new one on MO. Thanks in advance!

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I followed your link, and I cannot even tell what is wrong about attaching helium balloons to both sides of a balance to model substraction on both sides of an equation. – user11235 Apr 10 '11 at 20:32
The more I think about this "error", the less I am convinced. It's like saying that you cannot say that $\binom n k$ is the number of $k$-element sets in an $n$-element set because then you will be unable to generalize to complex values of $n$. Or you cannot define the chromatic polynomial as the function counting the colourings and then plug in $-1$ to get the acyclic orientations of the graph. Also, I think it is perfectly understandable what it means to add something halfways. – user11235 Apr 10 '11 at 20:50
It's not a "false belief". It's a false heuristic. And it's actually here: mathoverflow.net/questions/2358/most-harmful-heuristic – darij grinberg Apr 10 '11 at 21:17
When I taught elementary teachers the course on arithmetic, they all had been taught that multiplication is repeated addition, but I myself thought it was the cardinality of the cartesian product. We enjoyed discussing this difference in point of view. – roy smith May 9 '11 at 3:06
The "repeated addition" characterization has an advantage over the "cardinality of the Cartesian product" characterization (which possibly in some contexts could be considered a disadvantage). That is that it's not self-evident that it's commutative, and so one has a useful exercise for certain kinds of students: figure out why it's commutative. – Michael Hardy May 20 '11 at 2:28

A common false assumption is that that two non-orthogonal pure states of a quantum mechanical system may never be unambiguously distinguished by a measurement. (See http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9807022.pdf)

Another false belief is that a quantum computer is similar to an analogue computer, in that large computations will necessarily fail because of accumulated error. (See, for example, http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9712048)

For that matter, another common false believe is that Bell Inequalities aren't violated, although it is mostly held by people who have never heard of Bell Inequalities.

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I'm not sure how you can believe that something you have never heard of isn't violated. – Geoff Robinson Apr 10 at 17:55

Another common mistake. If $W = _P(e_1,\ldots, e_{n})$ is a vector space and $V$ is a subspace of $W$ of dimension $k$, then $V = _P(e_{i_1},\ldots, e_{i_k})$.

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What does that little subscript $p$ on the equals sign mean? – Gerry Myerson Feb 11 at 21:36
$V$ is a vector space over field $P$. – Mikhail Goltvanitsa Feb 12 at 6:52
So, what does "$V$ is a vector space over field $P$ $(e_1,\dots,e_n)$" mean? – Gerry Myerson Feb 12 at 8:37
$W$ is a vector space over field $P$, $(e_1,\ldots, e_n)$ is a basis of $W$. $V$ is a subspace of $W$. – Mikhail Goltvanitsa Feb 12 at 8:40

Let $R$ be a ring with identity $e$, $A, B\in R$, $A\neq 0$, $B$ is invertible element. If $A\cdot B = A$ then $B = e$.

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Assume that $a,b\in \mathbb{R}\setminus \{0\}$ which satisfy $a^{3}= 2b^{3}$.

Then $a-2b$ is a non zero nilpotent element of group ring $\mathbb{Z}_{3} \mathbb{R}$, that is $(a-2b)^{3}=0$.

This would be a counterexample to the zero divisor Kaplansky conjecture

The false lies in an obvious abuse in the definition of the group ring multiplication.

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This does not seem like a common false belief. – Yemon Choi May 15 at 11:47

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