-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 04/02/2010 02:48 AM, Gottlob Frege wrote:
I've mostly missed the train on this, but if I could quickly bring up a couple of comments from earlier in the thread(s). Paraphrasing:
1. infinity is not a number
[Other point removed, as it was addressed by Scott McMurray]
my responses: [...]
1. depends on your definition of 'number'. You can definitely say infinity is not an integer. (NaI ?) But for a reasonable definition of 'number' infinity IS a number (or more accurately, a bunch of numbers, as there is a bunch of infinities).
The best definition, that I know of for number is "The answer to the question: 'how many?' " and infinity fulfills that definition.
Yes, by that definition it's definitely a number. But it's not a *countable* number, which is the definition that I was using. :-) In relation to the XInt library, I'd say that an infinity value should also be counted as a not-a-number, in that an is_nan function should return true for it -- it's not something that can be calculated with, generally.
And now some background, and why I bring this up [...]
Thanks for the interesting information.
Anyhow, feel free to ignore this. I'm not actually taking sides on whether/how you treat NaN/infinity - sounds like you may be able to avoid it altogether. [...]
If I don't add an infinity value, I could. I'm leaning toward adding one (with sign), but it will act exactly like a NaN except for comparisons. - -- Chad Nelson Oak Circle Software, Inc. * * * -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAku2LNYACgkQp9x9jeZ9/wTd7QCfS8VYBIPytFY3i8mvpiiUY5O4 HAgAn25gK/HQkEvf9DB2PUTcRaQqDC5X =W8tS -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----