On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 2:51 AM, Ben Bacarisse <ben.use...@bsb.me.uk> wrote: > Chris Angelico <ros...@gmail.com> writes: > >> On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 12:29 AM, Ben Bacarisse <ben.use...@bsb.me.uk> wrote: >>> Right, but this is to miss the point. Let's say that 4000 years have >>> defined 1/3 to be one third, but Python 3 (as do many programming >>> languages) defines 1/3 to be something very very very very close to one >>> third, and *that* idea is very very very very new! >> >> Have you ever written one third as 0.33333333 ? > > Not that I recall, but, obviously, I can't be sure. I can't even tell > without counting how many 3s there are there. Why do you ask? > >> Because that's also >> something very very close to one third. > > Yes it is, but I don't get what point you are making.
You asserted that representing one third as something almost, but not exactly, one third was a new idea. It is not. Ever since ancient times, approximations have been used. Python is no different from anything else; the only reason it _looks_ different is that it's an approximation in binary, converted to decimal for display. ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
