idempotence

English - English

Definition of idempotence in English English dictionary

A quality of an action such that repetitions of the action have no further effect on outcome – being idempotent

Idempotence describes the property of operations in mathematics and computer science that yield the same result after the operation is applied multiple times. The concept of idempotence arises in a number of places in abstract algebra (in particular, in the theory of projectors, closure operators and functional programming, in which it is connected to the property of referential transparency)

a quality of an action such that repetitions of the action have no further effect on outcome

Etymology

() Latin roots, idem (“same”) +‎ potence (“the quality of having power”) – literally, “the quality of having the same power”. Coined by 19th century American mathematician Benjamin Peirce|Benjamin Peirce]] in context of algebra.Polcino & Sehgal (2002), p. 127