Re: [Phys-l] scientific notation

[Bernard Cleyet <bernardcleyet@redshift.com>]

both any number ^0 and

10^-2

Are reduced properly [1 and 1.0 .... e-01]

on my calculator (Caso power graphic)

bc sets his display to "sci9"


On 2009, Feb 21, , at 07:32, curtis osterhoudt wrote:

> This is certainly not the first time that this list has expressed
> reservations about scientific notation. In topics that suffer from
> insight-blindness - a deficit which is much like spelling blindness  
> for
> particular words - and who does not suffer from this one?   I find  
> that a
> touchstone is helpful. For Scientific notation for example, my
> touchstone is this equation:
>
> [AnyNumber]^0 = 1
>
>   For me, it is not difficult to spring from 10^0 = 1 to this:   
> 10^-1 = 1/10
>
> > From this spring board, you will probably agree that  1.0 X 10^-1  
> > = 1.0
> X 1/10
>
> Brian W
> ======================================================
>
> Where AnyNumber != 0. There was a recent argument bouncing here and
> there through the MathGroup mailing list about this. It brought out a
> lot of different views, based on historical arguments, arguments from
> authority, heuristic arguments, ones based on limits in the real
> domain, ones based on limits in the complex domain, ones based on
> Cantor set theory, and lots of others. It seemed to me that the safest
> answer was "undefined".
>
>  /************************************
> Down with categorical imperative!
> flutzpah@yahoo.com
> ************************************/
and:

Carl Mungan wrote:

> ....
>
> Proof that 10 raised to the power of -2 is 0.1. Try the following (go
> ahead, try it):
>
> Open Excel. Click on any empty cell. Format it as a number with 2
> decimal places. Type 10E-2. Hit return. QED
Ah, how easily I am deceived by a value in scientific notation that is
not normalized....
10.0 E-2 would normalize to 1.0 E-1 and the conflict would be reduced.
Or would it?

Brian W