[NBLUG/talk] OT: RE: The Romans' ban on zero

Jennifer Tracy tiny_tyrant at hotmail.com
Thu May 29 11:48:00 PDT 2003


All right boys, and perhaps some girls, you are going to give this newbie 
nightmares that go back to her days of studying for her physics degree.

Back to linux. :-)

Jenn


>From: Eric Eisenhart <eric at nblug.org>
>Reply-To: talk at nblug.org
>To: talk at nblug.org
>Subject: Re: [NBLUG/talk] The Romans' ban on zero
>Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 11:38:49 -0700
>
> > So 1/0 = infinity.
>
>BTW, this doesn't hold up, either...
>
>By the same logic:
>1/0 = infinity
>2/0 = infinity
>1/0 = infinity = 2/0
>1/0 = 2/0
>1 = 2
>
>The last of which is, obviously, false.
>
>Hence, n/0 = undefined.  It's not 0.  It's not n.  It's not 1.  It's not
>infinity.
>
>In most computerized mathematical systems, that's "NaN" which is a lot like
>NULL in a database in that NaN != NaN.
>
>(in other words, 1/0 = NaN, 2/0 = NaN, NaN != NaN, so you can't get to 1=2)
>--
>Eric Eisenhart
>NBLUG Co-Founder & Vice-President Pro Tempore
>The North Bay Linux Users Group
>http://nblug.org/
>eric at nblug.org, IRC: Freiheit at freenode, AIM: falschfreiheit, ICQ: 48217244
><< attach3 >>

_________________________________________________________________
Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online  
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963




More information about the talk mailing list