On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 12:36 PM, Don Guinn <[email protected]> wrote: > There are two issues here. One, which I was addressing, is how J internally > handles nouns, which I would think is the way nouns should be taught if > teaching J. > > In mathematical terms I would still think that a complex number is still a > scalar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalar_(mathematics) "In linear algebra, real numbers are called scalars..." Then again, the next paragraph goes on to say the same thing you just said. Then again, a later paragraph also allows for an informal use where an array whose dimensions are all 1 to be called a scalar. (And then there's scalar parts, scalar matrices, and scalar products and so on...) > I suspect that "array" is another one of those terms like "operator" and > "function" with ambiguous and conflicting definitions. Intuitively obvious? > Some definitions exclude scalars. Others do not. J's arrays are probably closer to tensors than they are to the vector spaces which are implied when you use the term "scalar", though that terminology has its own ambiguities in part because the mathematicians and the physicists each have their own "most important issues" to deal with. -- Raul ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
