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Re: Why is 2/3 not seen as rational? [was "plotting even function"]


From: Mike Miller
Subject: Re: Why is 2/3 not seen as rational? [was "plotting even function"]
Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 10:50:03 -0600 (CST)

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005, John B. Thoo wrote:

I don't understand why 2/3 is not seen as rational. At first I thought it may be because division by 3 results in a nonterminating decimal, but then I found that plotting x^(2/5) gives the same (formerly) unexpected result as plotting x^(2/3) (not symmetrical about the y-axix). So, why is m/n not seen as rational?

The computer encodes the fraction in binary code, not decimal code, so you have nonterminating binary. I think you need a power of two in the denominator to get a rational number in the computer world.

Mike



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