Rational monoid
Okay kiddo, have you ever heard of a group before? It's like a collection of things where you can do something called "combining" them together.
A rational monoid is kind of like a group, but instead of just being able to combine things together, we can also multiply them by numbers called "rationals".
For example, let's say we have a bunch of marbles. We can add (or combine) them together to make a bigger group of marbles. But with rational monoids, we can also multiply those marbles by a number, say 2, which would mean we now have twice as many marbles as before.
So a rational monoid is like a special kind of collection of things that allows us to do both adding and multiplying, and we call the things in the collection "elements" of the monoid. And just like with a group, there are rules we have to follow when we combine or multiply the elements.
Now, you might be wondering why anyone would want to use a rational monoid instead of just a regular group. Well, sometimes we need to work with things that aren't just whole numbers, like when we're working with measurements or percentages. In those cases, using a rational monoid is really helpful because it allows us to combine and multiply those non-whole numbers in a simple and organized way.
A rational monoid is kind of like a group, but instead of just being able to combine things together, we can also multiply them by numbers called "rationals".
For example, let's say we have a bunch of marbles. We can add (or combine) them together to make a bigger group of marbles. But with rational monoids, we can also multiply those marbles by a number, say 2, which would mean we now have twice as many marbles as before.
So a rational monoid is like a special kind of collection of things that allows us to do both adding and multiplying, and we call the things in the collection "elements" of the monoid. And just like with a group, there are rules we have to follow when we combine or multiply the elements.
Now, you might be wondering why anyone would want to use a rational monoid instead of just a regular group. Well, sometimes we need to work with things that aren't just whole numbers, like when we're working with measurements or percentages. In those cases, using a rational monoid is really helpful because it allows us to combine and multiply those non-whole numbers in a simple and organized way.