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by matt-noonan 2417 days ago
There are two different notions of algebra in common usage. One is the definition you gave (vector space with a bilinear product, as in Lie algebras, Clifford algebras, etc). The other definition, as used in the blog, comes from universal algebra. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_algebra

Which one(s) you have been exposed to just depends on which mathematical subcultures you’ve interacted with.

1 comments

Okay, thanks.

Mathematics Wikipedia is sometimes very biased towards certain points of view (usually more undergraddy, as evidenced by its insistence with the "abstract algebra" term), so I think it's being a bit too pushy with its "algebra" definition here. I've edited the term to say that this usage of "algebra" is a universal algebra thing.