From: Jay Belanger <jay.p.belanger@gmail.com>
To: David Hansen <david.hansen@gmx.net>
Cc: emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org
Subject: bug#1018: 23.0.60; Calculator Units Table "weirdness"
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:44:42 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87fxnpe0jp.fsf@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87zllxjq68.fsf@localhorst.mine.nu> (David Hansen's message of "Wed, 24 Sep 2008 21:32:15 +0200")
David Hansen <david.hansen@gmx.net> writes:
...
>> The values are stored that way, instead of as a float, when they are
>> exact.
>
> What exactly is "exact"?
"Exact" means exactly "exact". :)
> Just to be a bit pedantic: the "meter" (and therefore every measure of
> length/surface/volume) is *not* exact, it's an experimentally
> determined quantity (the length that light travels 1/299792458
> seconds).
Right, so when the Calc units table says that c = 299792458 m/s, that is
exact by definition. Many units are defined in terms of other units,
and then the values given in the units table are exact. It's only
conversions between two experimentally determined quantities (such as an
astronomical unit and a meter) that are necessarily inexact.
When the units table is displayed, having a conversion factor that is a
float indicates that it isn't exact; if conversion factors like that
between a tsp and ml are going to be displayed as a float, then there
needs to be another indicator that some values are not exact.
Jay
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2008-09-24 20:44 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 8+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2008-09-23 16:59 bug#1018: 23.0.60; Calculator Units Table "weirdness" David Hansen
2008-09-24 18:26 ` Jay Belanger
2008-09-24 19:32 ` David Hansen
2008-09-24 20:44 ` Jay Belanger [this message]
2008-09-25 13:58 ` David Hansen
2008-09-25 18:09 ` Jay Belanger
2008-09-25 4:35 ` Torsten Bronger
2008-09-30 2:47 ` Jay Belanger
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