<p>This sounds a bit like <a href="https://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Absorption_(mathematics)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">absorption</a>.  But I'm not quite sure this is exactly what you need.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-08-02T10:30:24.290Z
2022-08-02T10:30:24.290Z
Matthias
<p>I want to coalesce multiple operations in a system into one and am currently studying under what conditions it is admissible. The conditions that are needed are stronger than idempotence and I'm wondering if it has well-known name:</p>
<p>E.g.: considers two operations assigning a variable <code>A: x ← 1</code> and <code>B: x ← 2</code>. Both are idempotent.</p>
<p>By idempotence, we can conclude various things about sequential composition of those operations:</p>
<pre><code>A * A = A
A * A * B * B = A * B
</code></pre>
<p>But we cannot use idempotence to get <code>A * B = B</code> even though that's of course true given the definitions of <code>A</code> and <code>B</code>.</p>
<p>How would you name or concisely describe this compositional property of the operations?</p>

<dc.distributed-comp>
Sequential idempotence
Daniel Fabian
# Sequential idempotence

(Asked by: username_0 on 2022-08-02)

I want to coalesce multiple operations in a system into one and am currently studying under what conditions it is admissible. The conditions that are needed are stronger than idempotence and I'm wondering if it has well-known name:
E.g.: considers two operations assigning a variable A: x ← 1 and B: x ← 2. Both are idempotent.
By idempotence, we can conclude various things about sequential composition of those operations:
A * A = A
A * A * B * B = A * B

But we cannot use idempotence to get A * B = B even though that's of course true given the definitions of A and B.
How would you name or concisely describe this compositional property of the operations?

**Tags:** dc.distributed-comp


---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2022-08-02. Score: 1

This sounds a bit like [absorption](https://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Absorption_(mathematics)). But I'm not quite sure this is exactly what you need.


---

