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From: ch@dce.ie (Charles Bryant)
Newsgroups: comp.compression
Subject: Re: Integer not expressable in less than 13 words
Message-ID: <1991Apr23.112240.4144@dce.ie>
Date: 23 Apr 91 11:22:40 GMT
References: <1991Apr18.210832.9918@shl.com> <1991Apr19.155442.4840@looking.on.ca> <15901@smoke.brl.mil>
Organization: Datacode Communications Ltd, Dublin, Ireland
Lines: 18

In article <15901@smoke.brl.mil> gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>	The combinations of fewer than 13 English words that express
>	positive integers form a subset of the set of all possible
>	combinations of fewer than 13 English words, and thus that
>	subset is finite.
>	Every finite set of positive integers has a least member.

Hang on there! There is a gap there. A `combination of English words that
expresses an integer' is not `an integer'. For example `a random integer' or
`my age' both express an integer, but cannot be said to be less than or
greater than `forty two'. Also I have doubts that every finite set of
integers has a least member if sets are allowed where it is impossible to
determine whether a given integer is in the set or not.
-- 
Charles Bryant (ch@dce.ie)
--
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