Timeline for Is there a high-concept explanation for why characteristic 2 is special?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
5 events
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| S Aug 5, 2018 at 1:27 | history | suggested | Mike Pierce | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Mathjaxxed, since it's a popular post. I'll also Mathjax the answers, so this thread is only bumped once for this reason
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| Aug 5, 2018 at 0:09 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Aug 5, 2018 at 1:27 | |||||
| Aug 28, 2013 at 17:58 | comment | added | Lennart Meier | @Vigleik: This is true in so much of homotopy theory! For example, $p \cdot id_{S/p}$ for $S/p$ the mod-$p$-Moore spectrum is non-trivial exactly for $p=2$. This has been generalized by Stefan Schwede to the fact that $S/p$ has order at most $p-2$ in a certain sense and order $\geq 1$ means that $p\cdot id = 0$. See Theorem 1 of jtopol.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/05/21/… | |
| Jun 30, 2010 at 7:42 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | This is a completely subjective comment, but: I would say that the fact that $2$ starts acting weird much earlier in the day than the other primes is a special property of $2$. For instance, the theory of quadratic forms has a radically different feel in characteristic $2$. By analogy one would look to, say, cubic forms in characteristic $3$, but (i) the theory of cubic forms is not nearly as well-developed as that of quadratic forms, and (ii) in the best understood case -- elliptic curves -- characteristic $3$ is a little strange but characteristic $2$ is still stranger! | |
| Oct 23, 2009 at 15:13 | history | answered | Vigleik Angeltveit | CC BY-SA 2.5 |