[Sharlin]

> 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?

[SideQuark]

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.

[Sharlin]

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

[1718627440]

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

[tux3]

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

[Sharlin]

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

[hnfong]

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

[jmalicki]

\infty is an actual number not in R

[JohnKemeny]

Should be \subset.