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> 0.1 just isn't an actual number.

A finitist computer scientists only accepts those numbers as real that can be expressed exactly in finite base-two floating point?



Yes. A computer scientist should know how numbers are represented and not expect non-representable numbers in that format to be representable.

0.1 is just as non-representable in floating point as is pi as is 100^100 in a 32 bit integer.

Terminating dyadic rationals (up to limits based on float size) are the representable values.


I’m not sure if you got my joke but I referred to the mathematical philosophy, finitism.


That's essentially what you already do for integer arithmetic.


0.1 is of course a real number, but let A \in R the set of actual numbers... (/s)


The funny thing is, according to infinitists real numbers are not real. But I do like the concept of the set of actual numbers.


I don't know whether I'm an infinitist, but I personally think "real numbers" is the most ingenious marketing term created by mathematicians...


\infty is an actual number not in R


Should be \subset.




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