[tlhIngan Hol] an observation on the use of {vI'} "decimal point"

[Felix Malmenbeck]

> I don't know how they do it in English, but I remember my math professor
> who kept repeating that it's incorrect to say things like "three point
> twenty-five", which many people do in everyday life. From a
> mathematician point that's nonsense and also confusing, as 0.25 is the
> same as 0.250, so reading it as a unit would cause trouble.


Attending elementary school in the US, I recall that we were taught to label the decimal values explicitly. So, for example, 2.628 would be "two and six-hundred twenty-eight thousandths" and 2.0628 would be "two and six-hundred twenty-eight ten-thousandths", or something to that effect.


I guess that kind of made sense for elementary school students to drill us on what the decimal values actually represented, but I'm glad nobody actually seems to do that "in real life"; it leaves a lot of room for mistakes (both on behalf of the speaker and of the listener).


//loghaD

________________________________
From: tlhIngan-Hol <tlhingan-hol-bounces at lists.kli.org> on behalf of Lieven L. Litaer <levinius at gmx.de>
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2021 2:07:26 PM
To: tlhingan-hol at kli.org
Subject: Re: [tlhIngan Hol] an observation on the use of {vI'} "decimal point"

Am 15.06.2021 um 13:46 schrieb mayqel qunen'oS:
> At the above sentences we see, that the decimal numbers (if that's how
> you call in english the crap that follows the decimal point), is given
> by saying each number separately, instead of reading the whole number
> as a unit:

That is indeed a good observation, and it makes my mathematic brain
quite happy.

I don't know how they do it in English, but I remember my math professor
who kept repeating that it's incorrect to say things like "three point
twenty-five", which many people do in everyday life. From a
mathematician point that's nonsense and also confusing, as 0.25 is the
same as 0.250, so reading it as a unit would cause trouble.

Good to know that Klingon scientists are aware of this.

--
Lieven L. Litaer
aka the "Klingon Teacher from Germany"
http://www.tlhInganHol.com
http://klingon.wiki/En/Mathematics
http://klingon.wiki/En/Numbers
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