Re: Is Abu ?Abd Allah Mu?ammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi Dead?

From: Bob Badour <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca>
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 21:58:30 GMT
Message-ID: <a6uvh.6727$1x.117108@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca>

Walt wrote:

> "Bob Badour" <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca> wrote in message
> news:%g1vh.6160$1x.107747_at_ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
>

>>Marshall wrote:

>
>

>>[snip]

>
>

>>>Of course, these days we have very different calculating
>>>requirements than we did in al-Khwarizmi's time. A
>>>polynomial  is very, very different now from what it was
>>>more than M years ago. If nothing else, the rise of
>>>XML and the Web and their tremendous success should
>>>make us go back to first principles and consider whether it
>>>might be time to revive what was once, for centuries, the
>>>dominant numeric form. In particular, the fact that XML uses
>>>*text* tags, represents everything as character strings,
>>>and discards the straightjacket of rigid, well-defined schema
>>>should make us consider the value of a number system
>>>that represents quantities as strings of letters without
>>>any fixed base.

>
>

>>I prefer normalized RN, and I suggest the proper spelling is: MLX. Or is
>>that too much of a rigid straightjacket?

>
>
> I suggest the alternative spelling: MXL. This has the added benefit of
> making an homage to form MLX of the (US) IRS. A paragon of structure and
> simplicity, to be sure. But did you know that, if you add up the value of
> the letters in the phrase "Internal Revenue Service" according to as certain
> sercet code, the sum comes to the same as MCLXVI. That's apocalyptic, to
> be sure.

Now that you mention it, I suppose XML could be semi-normalized. In which case, the fully normalized version would be MXL and not MLX.

What's the proper protocol for resolving this? Entrails of a donkey, perhaps? Received on Mon Jan 29 2007 - 15:58:30 CST