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- Newsgroups: sci.math
- Subject: Re: Irrational?
- Message-ID: <1992Oct7.054117.29714@cs.wright.edu>
- From: bclaus@cs.wright.edu (Brian Clausing)
- Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 05:41:17 GMT
- References: <1992Oct6.162043.5000@Princeton.EDU>
- Organization: Wright State University
- Lines: 13
-
- From article <1992Oct6.162043.5000@Princeton.EDU>, by tao@potato.princeton.edu (Terry Tao):
- > I think the english version of irrational, meaning nonsensical, comes from the
- > Pythagorean point of view that ratios of integers were divine, for example
- > music tones should be perfect ratios. Something that is rational (i.e. sensical
- > can be divided up into manageable bits (rationed), whereas something irrational
- > cannot be cut up and so is perverse.
- >
- > Terry
-
- As you noted, ``irrational'' also means ``lacking a ratio,'' that is,
- having no representation as a ratio of integers. Quite so.
-
- Brian Clausing
-