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Re: My comments

This page is part of the web mail archives of SRFI 77 from before July 7th, 2015. The new archives for SRFI 77 contain all messages, not just those from before July 7th, 2015.



Thomas Bushnell BSG scripsit:

> > While they seem silly for small integers, inexact integers make sense
> > for huge values. For example, people often round huge integers to the
> > nearest million or billion. An even better example: Avogadro's number is
> > an integer, but it should not be represented as an exact integer,
> > because its exact value is unknown.
> 
> What makes you think Avogadro's number is an integer?

A bad example, no doubt.  But the current world population, though
unquestionably an integer, is not exactly known, and it is quite plausible
to say that it is 64########.

-- 
John Cowan  jcowan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  www.reutershealth.com  www.ccil.org/~cowan
Rather than making ill-conceived suggestions for improvement based on
uninformed guesses about established conventions in a field of study with
which familiarity is limited, it is sometimes better to stick to merely
observing the usage and listening to the explanations offered, inserting
only questions as needed to fill in gaps in understanding. --Peter Constable