• barsoap@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    IEEE 754

    I mean it’s an algebra, isn’t it? And it definitely was mathematicians who came up with the thing. In the same way that artists didn’t come up with the CGI colour palette.

    • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 months ago

      I’m not familiar with IEEE 754.

      Edit: I think this sort of space shouldn’t be the kind where people get downvoted for admitting ignorance honestly, but maybe that’s just me.

      • barsoap@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        It’s a wonderful world where 1 / 0 is ∞ and 1 / -0 is -∞, making a lot of high school teachers very very mad. OTOH it’s also a very strange world where x = y does not imply 1 / x = 1 / y. But it is, very emphatically, an algebra.

        Mostly it’s pure numerology, at least from the POV of most of the people using it.

      • Gobbel2000@programming.dev
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        7 months ago

        IEEE 754 is the standard to which basically all computer systems implement floating point numbers. It specifically distinguishes between +0 and -0 among other weird quirks.