FOM: RE: Re: Re: Godel, f.o.m.

[Steve Stevenson]

Matt Insall writes:
 > ..... But in fact, it seems to me that this very problem
 > of finiteness in physical machines should provide an impetus for more study
 > of what arithemtic theorems DO hold for finite sets of integers on a
 > machine.  

Just as bad (no, actually worse). Here's a simple experiment. Take a
standard, commercially developed Fortran compiler with its trig
routines. You should find that sin^2(x)+cos^2(x) is greater than 1.0
about three percent of the time. Is this any *real* problem or do we
just widen 1.0 to 1.0+\delta?

Best regards,

steve
-----
Steve (really "D. E.") Stevenson           Assoc Prof
Department of Computer Science, Clemson,   (864)656-5880.mabell
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