Single Precision Float

[altenbach]

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@Intaris wrote:
As an FPGA programmer, I am not sure how to feel.... 

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Bits are not numbers, but groups of bits can represent numeric values (and anything else if the specifications are known). Similarly, toner powder can represent numbers if fused to a piece of paper in a certain pattern. Lines scratched into a prison cell wall can represent numbers. Audio waves can represent numbers if we listen to the soccer scores on the radio. 😄

[Intaris]

I didn't mean to come across as serious with that. I was joking.

Spoiler

But now that you're answered.....

Nothing is a number. Numbers are abstract concepts. We can assign the meaning of numbers to anything we want, but only a subset of everything makes sense. Even an image of a number is not a number. One reliable data point is that the text representation "NaN" is truly not a number. 😎

Of course others have drawn attention to this mixing up of abstract and concrete objectivity: René Magritte: "This is not a pipe."

[altenbach]

Oh, I did take it as joke, of course. We've met. 😄  (I just took it and ran with it....)

Of course for the forum we should make a version of the Margritte painting containing an image of a diagram and the words "This is not a VI" and link to it whenever somebody attaches pictures instead of VIs.

(I vaguely remember something like that discussed very long ago, but maybe I my memory is faulty)

[Intaris]

The "this is not a VI" image sounds like a good idea....

[paul_cardinale]

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@Intaris wrote:

The "this is not a VI" image sounds like a good idea....

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What exactly "is" a VI?  Is it the file on disk that contains the .vi file?  Is it the data set in memory of that .vi file?  Is it merely a pattern of ones and zeros (which is purely abstract)?  We often speak loosely of many things; which sometimes makes it hard for us to speak tightly. 😀