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Posts for January 2010.

We compare the tasks of finding points of a lattice, computing the structure of finite abelian groups and explaining algorithms. We show up relations between these three topics and, as an example, depict the baby-step giant-step algorithm for order computation, as well as Terr's modification of this algorithm.
A standard topic in linear algebra is the dual space of a vector space, as well as the canonical embedding of a vector space in its double dual. Moreover, transposition of homomorphisms in terms of dual spaces is rather well known. Something less known is that one has a canonical map from the dual of V tensored with W to the space of homomorphisms from V to W. In this abstract nonsense post, we describe these canonical maps, their interplay, and try to determine their images.
We consider the property of an n times n matrix of being diagonalizable. Is this property open in the standard topology, or the Zariski topology? The emphasis lies on the real and complex numbers, as well as on arbitrary algebraically closed fields.