Congruence Modulo

You may see an expression like:

AB (mod C)
This says that A is congruent to B modulo C.
We will discuss the meaning of congruence modulo by
performing a thought experiment with the regular modulo
operator.
Let's imagine we were calculating mod 5 for all of the integers:

Suppose we labelled 5 slices 0, 1, 2, 3, 4. Then, for each of the

integers, we put it into a slice that matched the value of the
integer mod 5.
Think of these slices as buckets, which hold a set of numbers. For

example, 26 would go in the slice labelled 1,

because 26 mod 5=1.
Above is a figure that shows some integers that we would find in
each of the slices.
It would be useful to have a way of expressing that numbers
belonged in the same slice. (Notice 26 is in the same slice as
1, 6, 11, 16, 21 in above example).
A common way of expressing that two values are in the same
slice, is to say they are in the same equivalence class.
The way we express this mathematically for mod C
is: AB (mod C)
The above expression is pronounced A is congruent
to B modulo C.
Examining the expression closer:
1.
is the symbol for congruence, which means the
values A and B are in the same equivalence class.
2.
(mod C) tells us what operation we applied to A and B.
3.
when we have both of these, we call congruence
modulo C.
e.g. 2611 (mod 5)
26 mod 5=1 so it is in the equivalence class for 1,
11 mod 5=1 so it is in the equivalence class for 1,