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Re: Incorrect behavior of /NAN [message #30141 is a reply to message #30033]

Fri, 05 April 2002 17:57

David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001

Senior Member

James Kuyper (kuyper@gscmail.gsfc.nasa.gov) writes:

> The number of ball bearings produced in a given city during a specified
> time period can be expressed as a sum over the amounts produced by each
> ball bearing plant in that city. What should the value of that sum be,
> for a city that has no ball bearing plants? I'd say that it's definitely
> a number, and definitely 0. I think that this is the most reasonable
> value for the sum of almost any variable-length list, when that list
> happens to have a length of 0. It's also the natural result of the most
> obvious algorithm for calculating the sum.

I agree. I was thinking about this while I was
feeding balls to my tennis team. (Don't ask,
please.) A sum is a counting operation.

"How many marbles are in the box?"

"None. The box is full of cupcakes."

Then the sum of marbles in the box is 0.

Seems pretty straightforward to me. But then
I've never understood the whole Christian/Muslim
thing either. :-(

Cheers,

David

--
David W. Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting
Phone: 970-221-0438, E-mail: david@dfanning.com
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
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[Message index]

		Incorrect behavior of /NAN By: K. Bowman on Thu, 04 April 2002 07:40
		Re: Incorrect behavior of /NAN By: Craig Markwardt on Sat, 06 April 2002 07:46
		Re: Incorrect behavior of /NAN By: Kenneth P. Bowman on Sat, 06 April 2002 06:28
		Re: Incorrect behavior of /NAN By: David Fanning on Fri, 05 April 2002 17:57
		Re: Incorrect behavior of /NAN By: James Kuyper on Fri, 05 April 2002 14:53
		Re: Incorrect behavior of /NAN By: K. Bowman on Fri, 05 April 2002 14:25
		Re: Incorrect behavior of /NAN By: Craig Markwardt on Fri, 05 April 2002 13:53
		Re: Incorrect behavior of /NAN By: Paul van Delst on Fri, 05 April 2002 07:35
		Re: Incorrect behavior of /NAN By: Paul van Delst on Thu, 04 April 2002 13:52
		Re: Incorrect behavior of /NAN By: K. Bowman on Mon, 15 April 2002 06:47
		Re: Incorrect behavior of /NAN By: noymer on Sun, 14 April 2002 18:32

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