A use for integer quotients

[michael]

> Not formally, AFAIK.  For example, 3 with no decimal point following
> could be anything from 2.5 to 3.4.  If I remember correctly, to be
> fussy about it, you would need to specify 3.00/4.00 to get 0.75 or am
> I missing something or misremembering my ancient maths courses ;) ?
>

I'm pretty sure that mathematicians say that
  three, 3, 3.00, iii
are different numerals for the same number.
This number is a real number, a rational number, an integer, and a natural
number.

> More importantly, the thing everyone is talking about here is an
> integer operation yielding a real (float) result.  Isn't this kind of
> a "no-no" amongst mathematicians?

I'm not sure whether the "inner product" from vector algebra could be
considered an "operator", but it does operate on vectors and yields a
scalar.

>
> Maybe I'm wrong here...