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Article #147Re: Refreshing basics for postgraduate study
From: Ken Pledger
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:06
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:06
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2570 bytes
In article <h5v0039oor1n87435l8m98vkh6eo85eis0@4ax.com>,
Ian George <egroegnai@yugswen.moc> wrote:
> Gee, I knew I'd end up feeling stupid, and still do, because I don't
> know why .2 becomes 4 rather than .4? Which is why my answer was
> closer to 13 than 1300.. Which rule have I forgotton here?
> ....
Rather than forgetting any rule, you may just have been misled by
bad notation. In algebraic formulae people sometimes insert a dot to
indicate multiplication, for example a.b instead of ab . But IMHO
it's a bad practice to carry over that convention to arithmetical
formulae, as the multiplication dot is easily confused with a decimal
point. The traditional multiplication sign is clearer, in your example
(3^2 x 2^2)^2 . (That last dot was just a fullstop. :-)
Ken Pledger.
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