From: Yuri Tzara Date: 2010-11-26T03:43:42+09:00 Subject: Re: Ruby 1.8 vs 1.9 Phillip Gawlowski wrote in post #963922: > I'm quite aware that IEEE 754 defines the result of x_0/0 as > infinity. That is not, however, correct *in a mathematical sense*. Yes, it is. The creationist analogy continues, I see. Even when given facts which refute his position a second and third time, Mr. Gawlowski continues to ignore them while simply repeating his opinion. He twice ignored my suggestion to look up one-point compactifications. He twice ignored my explanation of joining oo to a line to make a circle, and of joining oo to a plane to make a sphere. He also ignored the same information found in the link provided by Adam. It's not coincidence that the IEEE operations on oo match the rules for the real projective line. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_projective_line#Arithmetic_operations The only exception is the result of oo + oo, however in computing it is convenient for that to be oo rather than undefined. Of course there's the +/- distinction for oo (also convenient in computing) which is eliminated by identifying +oo with -oo, as one would expect for a circle. There are perhaps other technicalities but generally IEEE operations are modeled after the real projective line. This is useful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-point_compactification http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_sphere -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.