Re: Proposal: 6NF

On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 00:28:52 GMT, David Cressey wrote:

(snip)
>It's not clear to me that the real number 2 is the same thing as the integer
>2.

Hi David,

For mathematicians, it is. The domain of integers is a subdomain of the domain of real numbers - each integer is also a real number. So the integer value 2 IS the real value 2.0.

The problems started when we wanted to store information in computers and found that different domains required differrent representations. As a result, different representations have to be converted to a common representation before comparisons can be made - and if the conversions introduce inaccuracy, then the comparisons become inaccurate as well.

IMO, that has nothing to do with theory. It's just the result of a shortcoming in what we can presently achieve with computers. Obviously, correctly representing a real value is still impossible.

Best, Hugo Received on Fri Oct 13 2006 - 00:49:44 CEST