In sci.math, odin

wrote
on Fri, 9 Sep 2005 16:47:10 -0700
:
Dirk Van de moortel wrote:
By the way, zero is usually taken to be both positive and
negative.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahaha!
And you expect to teach OTHERS?!

The IEEE Floating-Point Arithmetic Standard (IEEE 754) defines zero
representions as positive zero and negative zero. Just about every CPU on
the planet uses this standard. If zero is not positive or negative, then
what do you figure it is?


Personally, I think a modified Law of Trichotomy might apply:
a real is either positive, zero, or negative. Therefore,
zero is neither one or the other. Terms such as "nonnegative"
or "nonpositive" are occasionally used in proof descriptions,
if one needs to be able to allow or select 0 from a set of reals
during a proof.

However, there were problems with +0 and -0 in some processors,
using one's complement arithmetic. Modern processors all use
two's complement for integers, and there's only one representation
for 0 therein.

--
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