Ladder

Modular arithmetic — the ladder

2 distinct arguments against one idea, from the one that introduces it to the one that assumes the rest.
  1. Arithmetic on a dial of 12. A dial with 12 positions. Starting at 8 and stepping forward 9 places lands on 5, because the walk passes the top 1 time on the way.

    Numbers that wrap

    A clock does arithmetic. It has finitely many numbers, addition never leaves it, and multiplication behaves entirely differently depending on one property of the size of the dial.

    rung 1 · discrete
  2. One number, two dials: 3 and 5. A grid of remainder pairs, each cell holding the smallest number that leaves those two remainders.

    Two dials at once

    Watch one number on two clocks with different faces. If the faces share no factor, every pair of readings occurs exactly once — so two remainders name a number, and a hard calculation can be split into two easy ones.

    rung 2 · number

All ladders