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Call your Congressman Today - Now is the time for one final push to urge your Representative to vote NO on the Rescissions Act.

Why Computers are Bad at Algebra

Season 1 Episode 31 | 14m 24s

The answer lies in the weirdness of floating-point numbers and the computer's perception of a number line.

Aired: 07/20/17
Extras
Can you save the target from his assassin in a square room with bouncy walls?
Can you stack four colored cubes so that each color only shows once on each side?
Set theory is the foundation of all of mathematics. How does it handle infinity?
When you think about math, what do you think of knots? Probably... knot.
In SET, what is the maximum number of cards you can deal that might not contain a SET?
What shape do you most associate with a standard analog clock? Circle or... torus?
Could you explain numbers to someone without using the notion of a number?
If Fermat had a little more room in his margin, what proof would he have written there?
Infinities come in different sizes. So what's the right way to describe the sum?
In the physical world, objects are made of simpler parts. What are numbers made of?
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Can you save the target from his assassin in a square room with bouncy walls?
Can you stack four colored cubes so that each color only shows once on each side?
Set theory is the foundation of all of mathematics. How does it handle infinity?
When you think about math, what do you think of knots? Probably... knot.
In SET, what is the maximum number of cards you can deal that might not contain a SET?
What shape do you most associate with a standard analog clock? Circle or... torus?
Could you explain numbers to someone without using the notion of a number?
If Fermat had a little more room in his margin, what proof would he have written there?
Infinities come in different sizes. So what's the right way to describe the sum?
In the physical world, objects are made of simpler parts. What are numbers made of?