Re: The IDS, the EDS and the DBMS

"Marshall Spight" <mspight_at_dnai.com> wrote in message news:5vs1d.432089$%_6.167991_at_attbi_s01...

> The difference here is between rationals and irrationals;
> rationals present no huge difficulties but irrationals
> cannot be represented extensionally in finite space.

I disagree.

First off, the common fraction is really an expression. If I express a number as 10/3, I've expressed the number in a few symbols, but what I've expressed is "the result of dividing 10 by 3". This number can't be expressed exactly as a finite decimal fraction, or as a finite binary fraction.

In this sense "sqrt(2)" is not all that different.

I could, if you were so inclined, be represented as a finite ternary fraction.

Even the traditional "floating point number" is really an expression. 6.028E23 It's "6028 divided by 1000 multiplied by 10 to the 23rd power." The fact that FORTRAN (or any other 3GL) represents these numbers as decimal floating point numbers while the computer crunches them as binary floating point numbers just adds to the fun. Received on Tue Sep 14 2004 - 06:26:47 CDT