- Proof for author
- 0.1
Bring something beautiful
Roger Hui
The following e-mail exchange took place on 2010-06-24 during a discussion on numeric representation.
Morten Kromberg: And… I shall fight against adding any form of NaN / Infinity – to the death! They will horribly complicate our implementation and don’t help users do anything useful.
Roger Hui: In the year 2033 Earth was discovered by Survey Fleet MCXII of the Galactic Empire. The Emperor ordered Earth to send a representative to the court, with strict instructions to “bring something beautiful”.
- Emperor
- What beautiful things does Earth have?
- Earth Representative
-
Your excellency, our mathematician
Euler proved
in our year 1737 that
+/(1+⍳∞)*-s ←→ ×/÷1-(⍭⍳∞)*-s
- Emperor
- What is the
⍭
symbol? - Earth Rep.
⍭i
is thei
-th prime.- Emperor
- And what is ∞? Does it do anything useful?
- Earth Rep.
- It denotes infinity, your excellency.
- Emperor
- (ponders equation for a minute or two) Respect!
- Emperor
- Neat notation you have there. Tell me more.
- Earth Rep.
- Your excellency, it’s called APL. It was invented by the Canadian Kenneth E. Iverson…