Ted MacNeil writes:
| BTW, transendental numbers are a subset of irrationals
If, as I think we may safely assume, 'transendental' is a misspelling of
'transcendental', this observation is incorrect.
An irrational number is a non-algebraic real number. And it is thus perhaps
possible to say, very loosely, that real transcendentals are a subset of the
irrationals.
Unfortunately many transcendentals, e.g., i^i, are imaginary, indeed an
infinite number of them are; and a definition of the transcendentals as a
subset of the irrationals is thus quite wrong.
Mr. MacNeil's other observations are cogent: pi and e and the other important
transcendentals can indeed be represented with useful accuracy as double- or
extended-precision floating-point constants [or, if they are complex, a pair of
them].
John Gilmore Ashland, MA 01721-1817 USA
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