Re: More on trits & tetrits... (long)
P1788
On 23 Apr 2010, at 15:24, Michel Hack wrote:
> Vincent Lefèvre wrote:
>> In floating-point arithmetic, if you have an exact zero and signed
>> inexact zeros, you need a 4th zero (inexact zero with unknown sign)
>> and a 3rd infinity (infinity with unknown sign).
>
> Right -- except it would be a 5th infinity...
>
> ...Now we just need a (paper/dream) arithmetic design for this!
>
> Interval Arithmetic is supposed to get us out of this mess.
Hear, hear. I cited Siegfried already. In fact if any such system exists it would have been invented already by Gauss, or Cauchy, or someone of that time. If we go on in this way we might produce the Nonstandard Reals with infinitely many infinities and infinitesimals...
John