On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 5:42 PM, John H Palmieri <jhpalmier...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Oct 22, 5:11 pm, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote: >> Well like it or not, it is a fact that 0.0^0.0 = 1 *is* the official >> ISO 99 standard. Note that ISO = "international standards >> organization". >> >> I'm not making an argument here for or against this. But there is no >> arguing with it being an official standard as dictated by an >> international standards organization for perhaps the worlds most >> popular programming language (C/C++). > > There is a question about whether we, as mathematicians, should > automatically accept as standards something designated for use in a > programming language. I know that Sage is a programming environment, > but shouldn't it reflect mathematical truth, not computer programming > standards? If the ISO established a standard which was more > objectionable from a mathematical point of view, would we > automatically adapt it? > >> I know nothing of why they made that choice. > > Yes. Quoting from the page you cited: > > "The following sections are informative. ... Rationale: None" > > :p
I just mentioned "0^0" to my wife (a Biologist), and she instantly said "it doesn't exist". William --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
