A common visualization of modular arithmetic consists of considering a variable x that monotonically increases mod n: when x is about to reach n, it wraps around to the starting value 0. For instance, the values of x mod 5 are:
0,1,2,3,4,0,1,2,3,4,0,1,2,3,4...
What about a variation where x does not wrap around to 0 but instead it bounces and begin decreasing towards 0?
0,1,2,3,4,3,2,1,0,1,2,3,4...
The period of this sequence is 2(n−1). In order to model this "bouncing arithmetic", we need to distinguish between increasing values and decreasing values; we do so by subscripting a + or − symbol, respectively:
0+,1+,2+,3+,4+,3−,2−,1−.
Note that 0+ = 0− and (n−1)+ = (n−1)−. It is entirely trivial to lay out the foundations of bouncing arithmetic by mapping them to a suitable representation in modular arithmetic:
(a = b bounce n) := (a = b mod 2(n-1)),
a+ := a bounce n,
a− := −a bounce n.
The last two statements introduce the subscripting +− notation. It is easy to verify that these definitions are accurate: for instance, 3− bounce 5 is (the equivalence class of) −3 bounce 5, which is −3 = 5 mod 8, just as it should be (3− goes right after 4). Having learned the nice equivalence between −a and a−, we can dispense with the subscripting notation altogether and simply use +a and −a.
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