You would also have to specify the precision of the result. Put different: if that specification is too precise (pushing the limits of what floating point numbers can represent), the algorithm would degrade to meaninglessness because of floating point inaccuracies. And, if that specification was not precise enough then you wouldn't be able to represent many values.
Something like six digits of decimal (base 10 (base 10 (base 10 (...)))) precision might be a sweet spot. Thanks, -- Raul On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 3:34 PM William Tanksley, Jr <[email protected]> wrote: > > You could do this with rational numbers, since whether or not they > terminate IS an interesting puzzle. Of course, you have to specify a > "decimal" base -- 1/3 doesn't terminate base 10, but does terminate base 60. > > On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 12:26 PM Raul Miller <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Floating point numbers implicitly terminate in infinitely repeating > > zeros after the 52 expressed bits of mantissa. > > > > Or, put differently, when we need to represent numbers which have > > non-zero bits that can't be represented, we approximate. Or, another > > view of floating point numbers is that they each represent an infinity > > of values which divide the number line between the preceding and > > following values (with a few special cases, like the ininities). > > > > I hope this helps in your efforts to express what you are looking for... > > > > Thanks, > > > > -- > > Raul > > On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 3:23 PM Skip Cave <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > Ok. Then I redefine my question: > > > > > > Given the vector a: > > > > > > ]a =. % 1+i.20 > > > > > > 1 0.5 0.333333 0.25 0.2 0.166667 0.142857 0.125 0.111111 0.1 0.0909091 > > > 0.0833333 0.0769231 0.0714286 0.0666667 0.0625 0.0588235 0.0555556 > > > 0.0526316 0.05 > > > > > > > > > Define a verb that will find all the floating-point numbers in a that > > will > > > eventually terminate in infinitely repeating zeros. > > > > > > > > > Skip > > > > > > > > > On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 2:12 PM Henry Rich <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > The trailing 0 repeats forever. > > > > > > > > Henry Rich > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
