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Re: Why is 2/3 not seen as rational? [was "plotting even function"]
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From: |
Mike Miller |
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Subject: |
Re: Why is 2/3 not seen as rational? [was "plotting even function"] |
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Date: |
Sun, 20 Mar 2005 10:50:03 -0600 (CST) |
On Sun, 20 Mar 2005, John B. Thoo wrote:
I don't understand why 2/3 is not seen as rational. At first I thought
it may be because division by 3 results in a nonterminating decimal, but
then I found that plotting x^(2/5) gives the same (formerly) unexpected
result as plotting x^(2/3) (not symmetrical about the y-axix). So, why
is m/n not seen as rational?
The computer encodes the fraction in binary code, not decimal code, so you
have nonterminating binary. I think you need a power of two in the
denominator to get a rational number in the computer world.
Mike
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