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From: gsmith@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Gene Ward Smith)
Newsgroups: net.math
Subject: Ok, I give up!
Message-ID: <11594@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Wed, 29-Jan-86 09:25:44 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.11594
Posted: Wed Jan 29 09:25:44 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Feb-86 00:28:46 EST
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: gsmith@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Gene Ward Smith)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 51

>> While algorithms for doing floating point arithmetic may be of interest
>> to mathematicians this above stuff has very little to do with mathematics.
>> It involves computer issues only. Please keep this sort of thing out of
>> net.math. By the way... are you sure you cross posted it to enough groups???
>>  
>> Bob Silverman
>
>> .... Tim announced that many people believe that such problems
>> are in fact mathematical. Unfortunatly, these people are wrong. I
>> suspect a lot of us would support the efforts of Bob Silverman or anyone else tokeep such submissions *off* of net.math, especially when the person posting
>> seems to be well-supplied with places to post. If the "people who post" don't
>> know or don't care what mathematics is, what is wrong with telling them so,
>> instead of "letting them decide"...
>> 
>>       Gene W. Smith
>
>Gene:
>
>As I mentioned before, we have more than one definition of what mathematics
>is.
>
>                               ...in the eye of the beholder...
>
			       Tim Snyder
>
>A recent discussion on net.arch raised the problem of defining integer
>division for negative numbers.  Most computers seem to say that -3/2 is
>-1, and -3%2 is -1.  Many people thought this was fine, but some of us
>think that -3/2 should be -2, and -3%2 should be 1.  Both sides agree
>Are there any good mathematical grounds for choosing one alternative over
>the other here?  Note that I am not asking from a hardware point of view
>which is better.  I want to know mathematically if one is better than
>the other.
>
>Tim Smith       sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim || ima!ism780!tim || ihnp4!cithep!tim
>

  I really do give up. Post your tax return here for all I care, it has numbers in it. In any case, this gives me a chance to vent one of my pet peeves, since
now that I have recanted, I can reply to Tim Smiths problem.

  Tim: Yes, of course one is better mathematically. The people who are trying
to tell you -3%2 = -1 is acceptable should be banned from the business. I
don't know how many times I've had to deal with the problem of the yo-yo
heads who put this kind of crap on a computer. "%" is supposed to be a mod
function, if it treats negative numbers differently than positive numbers
then we just have to re-write the function "%" or work around the mistake.
Its just like defining sin(x) as |sin(x)| and thinking this is just as good.
I've always been mystified as to the reason why anyone was dumb enough to
think differently, maybe I'll read net.arch and find out.

       Gene "Yeah, sure this is math" Smith