From: Marc Heiler <shevegen@...>
Date: 2012-01-27T13:13:35+09:00
Subject: Re: Microrant on Ruy's Math Skills

> (2) The amount of emotion and defensiveness around this issue is
> staggering. It is the very definition of a religious argument. On one
> side are people who think "math should work like I learned in grade
> school," on the other are people who think "math does work like I
> learned in college" (and the subset of those saying, "if you haven't
> had my level of training then you are stupid"), and then there a bunch
> of people in the middle saying, "you're both right, sort of!"

Well. I have always been bad in Math.

But when I see something like:


x = 1.1

Then i assume that x will be exactly 1.1

That would even by MY own principle of least surprise.

Now I read that, due to the way how Floats are handled on
computers, this is only an approximation.

And I am sad. Because it shows that computers are not perfect
at all.

Because I want to think that Math is more elegant and more
precise than it should have to deal with a

1.100000000000000088817841970012523233890533447265625000000000

instead.

Where is the elegance in that number? It is as if someone is trying
to add some insignificant numbers to Infinity ... but of course
once done, these are no longer insignificant! They are now significant
and just rounded!

There goes a beautiful mind. :(

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