Turn off ZeroDivisionError?

[Steven D'Aprano]

Re: Turn off ZeroDivisionErr or?

On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 17:47:39 -0800, Mark Dickinson wrote:

I've no clue where your (Steven's) idea that 'all ordinals are surreal
numbers' came from. They're totally unrelated.

Tell that to John Conway.

[quote]
Just as the *real* numbers fill in the gaps between the integers, the
*surreal* numbers fill in the gaps between Cantor's ordinal numbers. We
get them by generalizing our use of the {|} notation for the ordinal
numbers.
[...]
The ordinal numbers are those where there aren't any numbers to the right
of the bar:

{|} = 0, the simplest number of all
{0|} = 1, the simplest number greater than 0
{0,1|} = 2, the simplest number greater than 1 (and 0)

and so on.
[end quote]

"The Book of Numbers", John W Conway and Richard K Guy, Copernicus Books,
1996, p.283.

I trust I don't have to explain this to Mark, but for the benefit of
anyone else reading, Conway invented surreal numbers.


--
Steven

[Mark Dickinson]

Re: Turn off ZeroDivisionErr or?

On Feb 16, 9:39 pm, Steven D'Aprano <st...@REMOVE-THIS-
cybersource.com .auwrote:

On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 17:47:39 -0800, Mark Dickinson wrote:

I've no clue where your (Steven's) idea that 'all ordinals are surreal
numbers' came from.  They're totally unrelated.

>
Tell that to John Conway.

Apparently I also get stupid when I haven't had any dinner. Or
perhaps dinner has nothing to do with it. I was thinking of the
nonstandard reals.

You're absolutely right, and I hereby forfeit my Ph.D. (for the second
time today, as it happens).

Mark