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From: suarez@prl.dec.com (Ascander Suarez)
Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.math.symbolic,comp.theory,comp.lang.functional
Subject: Re: do computers believe in real numbers?
Message-ID: <1991Apr4.095619.27416@prl.dec.com>
Date: 4 Apr 91 09:56:19 GMT
References: <7197@munnari.oz.au>
Sender: news@prl.dec.com (USENET News System)
Reply-To: suarez@prl.dec.com (Ascander Suarez)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation - Paris Research Laboratory
Lines: 20

In article <7197@munnari.oz.au>, aet@felix.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Albert Edward THOMPSON) writes:
  
  	I am trying to implement real numbers in a normal-order functional language--
  NOT floating point numbers or any other approximation.
  	This is my problem:
  		I don't know what real numbers are 
  		or even whether they can exist in any pragmatic (i.e. computational) sense.
  
  ...

There is an article at the lisp  and Functional Programming conference 1988 entitled:

Exact Real Computer Arithmetic with Continued Fractions
by Jean Vuillemin

The author presents a representation of the computable real numbers and 
algorithms for their manipulation.

	Ascander Suarez
	suarez@decprl.dec.com