Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 18:27:40 -0600 (CST) From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: Salvo Bartolotta <bartequi@inwind.it> Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: OT again: Re: hexidecimal literacy Message-ID: <14963.26492.324702.290472@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <20010127.23473800@bartequi.ottodomain.org> References: <14963.8033.752142.149320@guru.mired.org> <20010127.20140200@bartequi.ottodomain.org> <14963.13797.116165.382738@guru.mired.org> <20010127.22394200@bartequi.ottodomain.org> <14963.21950.110019.468965@guru.mired.org> <20010127.23473800@bartequi.ottodomain.org>
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Salvo Bartolotta <bartequi@inwind.it> types: > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Original Message <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< > > Nope, only 0 is exempt. Unary is usually the first notational systems > > ones learns for representing numbers, and is almost certainly the > > first one discovered by humanity. It's probably used by more people > > than binary. > > I was thinking of a *positional* system of the kind a*(base raised to > 0) + b * (base raised to 1) + ... Right. When base is 1, "(base raised to x)" is unity in all positions, so it becomes the process of adding a series of 1s and 0s. Since the position is on longer informative, you just throw it out - and the zeros go with it. It is rather strange, but such things happen in degenerate cases. On the other hand - those cases are part of the beauty of the system. > Erm, yes. Actually, I have continuous homomorphisms R -> R+ with 0 < > base < 1 in mind. And the contruction of the exponential functions (as > well as the topological theorems involved in it) IS beautiful. :-)) I tend to prefer discrete mathematics myself - I never did like the way continuous systems feel around the edges. Yeah, I know - thats the degenerate case for those systems. Just to do a complete topic change, have you read: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Hamming.html The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics, R.W. Hamming http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences, Eugene Wigner http://www.cfcl.com/~jef/effectiveness_mathematics.html Effectiveness of Mathematics, Jef Raskin I just had them pointed out to me, but they contain things that any mathematician - or physicist - should think about. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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