Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Mar 17)

Steven Taschuk staschuk at telusplanet.net
Wed Mar 19 17:38:23 EST 2003


Quoth Chermside, Michael:
  [...]
> [1] A really interesting argument can be made that it's got just as
>   many 9's as 0's, since "x.00000..." = "(x-1).99999..." by most useful
>   definitions. Does this mean that integers are normal in base 2?

Imho, the argument is not so interesting.  The equiprobable
distribution property is a property of the symbol sequence, not
strictly speaking of the number.  Thus the notion of normality of
a number requires some function from numbers to symbol sequences,
or a set of such functions.  That is, unique representations are
required.

-- 
Steven Taschuk                                     staschuk at telusplanet.net
Receive them ignorant; dispatch them confused.  (Weschler's Teaching Motto)





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