On Thursday, January 23, 2020 at 1:28:44 AM UTC-6, Philip Thrift wrote: > > > > On Wednesday, January 22, 2020 at 7:29:32 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote: >> >> >> >> On 1/22/2020 5:08 PM, Alan Grayson wrote: >> >> >>> When you measure something and it is so close to zero as to be >>> indistinguishable from zero, then taking it to be zero is not an assumption. >>> >>> >> *Why don't you compare the measured value with the curvature of a sphere >> 1 LY in diameter, or !0^6 LY in diameter? Do you really think the curvature >> would be significantly different from the measured value of the universe? I >> doubt it. So, taking it to be zero, is just what you prefer, nothing more. >> CMIIAW, AG* >> >> >> No, because zero is a physically interesting value. There maybe some >> unrecognized symmetry principle that makes it zero. It's unlikely that >> there's some symmetry principle that makes it 1e-6. That's why physicist >> look at the data as evidence for zero. Of course they may be wrong. But >> it's not because they are just pulling assumptions out of thin air. >> >> Brent >> > > > > (from Wikipedia) > > *There are two zeroes*: +0 (*positive zero*) and −0 (*negative zero*) and > this removes any ambiguity when dividing. In IEEE 754 > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_754> arithmetic, *a* ÷ +0 is positive > infinity when *a* is positive, negative infinity when *a* is negative, > and NaN when *a* = ±0. The infinity signs change when dividing by −0 > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%88%920_(number)> instead. > > > > (cont.)
*Infinity –* The values +infinity and -infinity are denoted with an exponent of all ones and a mantissa of all zeros. The sign bit distinguishes between negative infinity and positive infinity. Operations with infinite values are well defined in IEEE. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/ieee-standard-754-floating-point-numbers/ @philipthrift -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/19b1b386-68de-4049-8131-295ad31a736c%40googlegroups.com.
