Does a PC know what a 0 is?

[Telebubbies]

45 minutes ago, Brenz said:

If that is at all true its either a bug with the software she is using or a setting somewhere in the software. In that sense a computer can certainly understand what the value 0 is.

No one really understands what she talks about. She crosses her arms when we all talk and say that there is a disease going around and we can catch it if we talk too much. But she seems like dead serious. And she is a grade 9 teacher!! 

[straight_stewie]

That's a very complex question. If by "0" you mean the concept of the number zero, or the concept of "nothingness", then no, the computer has absolutely no idea what that means or what you are talking about. If by "0" you mean the abstract name that we give a low logic state, then yes, the computers logic circuits are capable of "understanding" "0" as meaning "off" and then outputting some result based on that. The answer also depends on your definition of "understand". If you use the dictionary definition (" infer something from information received ") then no, computer hardware will never "understand" anything. If by "understand" you mean "capable of providing a logical output for a given input" then yes they can "understand" , that's exactly what logic gates do.

Ultimately though, computer hardware will never have any understanding of abstract ideas (which include numbers). Software (AI) is starting to almost get there, and maybe eventually a general AI will exist that will be able to truly understand abstract ideas.

[AlTech]

On ‎6‎/‎3‎/‎2016 at 4:18 AM, Telebubbies said:

Hey guys. Sorry if this is in the wrong Topic section, but I think that I should post it here. I am good with working on PCs and I also code some Java. Now at my school there is this really old lady who tried trash talking me about how a PC works in class. She says this: "A PC does not know what a 0 is. Only the numbers about it" or something like that. I do know that the system takes the number as nothing. It practically has no value. But I just want to ask you guys if a PC does know what a 0 is or does it not? 

In my country not everyone is good with technology.. (South Africa). 

 

Anyway, please answer. Ask if you don't understand what I am exactly talking about. 

Yes CPUs know binary. they only know 0s and 1s and the OS coverts all the other information into Assembly and then into Binary.

 

For example If your program has a function to store data, the OS tells the program in Assembly the correct command. Then it turns it into binary

[BrightCandle]

Computers can obviously represent 0 but the situation is a bit more complicated.

 

In addition 0 works as you would expect as identity 1+0 = 1

In multiplication it works as you would expect as well 1 * 0 = 0

However where it gets a bit funky is in division, specifically divide by 0, ie 1/ 0 = ?

 

In a mathematics sense as a human we would say that is infinity, we can work with that and do things on that basis. In integer maths on a computer what will actually happen is you will get a can not divide by zero exception or if no checking is done an undefined value. Doing the same thing with floating points however will set it to the INFINITY floating point representation. But you can't really do much with infinity other than detect its presence, trying to calculate further with it causes exceptions. But the way in which integer and floating point maths works different has always been a little bit annoying to me.

 

So a computer does understand and store 0's and in most of the normal circumstances it works as you would expect. But its not got great handling around infinity and divide by 0 and other maths edge cases can be problematic on a computer as well.

 

[Godlygamer23]

4 hours ago, BrightCandle said:

However where it gets a bit funky is in division, specifically divide by 0, ie 1/ 0 = ?

 

In a mathematics sense as a human we would say that is infinity

It's not infinity. It's a complex infinity. 

 

Infinity*0 is still 0. 

[straight_stewie]

11 hours ago, BrightCandle said:

However where it gets a bit funky is in division, specifically divide by 0, ie 1/ 0 = ?

 

In a mathematics sense as a human we would say that is infinity

1/0 is not infinity. It is undefined. You can learn more about that here. Basically, though, if 1/0=infinity and 2/0=infinity then 1=2 and we know this to be false, therefore, n/0 != infinity.

As for a computer "understanding" 0 and 1, I really believe this to be false. The computer doesn't operate on 0 and 1, humans use these terms to mean either "true/false" or "on/off". We use the terms 0 and 1 as a way to abstract away the complexities of transistors. In reality, 0 is any voltage below some threshold such that a transistor will not turn on, and 1 is any voltage above a threshold where the transistor will turn on. What happens if a transistor fails in an adder circuit? All the sudden, your computer no longer "understands" what a binary number is. In contrast with your brain, when a synapse fails, you don't suddenly forget everything you knew, infact quite the opposite is true, your synapses are dying constantly, yet somehow you continue to get better and better at understanding things.

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 hour ago, straight_stewie said:

1/0 is not infinity. It is undefined. You can learn more about that here. Basically, though, if 1/0=infinity and 2/0=infinity then 1=2 and we know this to be false, therefore, n/0 != infinity.

You can't treat infinity like a value, because it's not a value. It's undefined because it has no meaning. Divide something into zero parts, what do you get?

 

Otherwise treating infinity like a value means ∞ / ∞ = 1. But ∞ / ∞  is undefined.

 

The fun one is 1^∞.

[Yamoto42]

12 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

You can't treat infinity like a value

I believe that was the point of his post...and it is actually not quite true...It is fully possible to treat infinity, and division by zero as values IFF you can redefine them in terms of functions.

The reason n/0 is undefined, as opposed to infinity is because lim n->0+ (n/0) [which is infinity] != lim n->0- (n/0) [which is -infinity];  which is to say lim n->0 (n/0) does not exist and is therefore undefinable.

On the other hand, I can say with absolute certainty that 1/oo = 0,  1^oo = 1, sin(oo) is undefined, and (-2^oo)/(1^oo) is -oo.

[Mira Yurizaki]

13 minutes ago, Yamoto42 said:

On the other hand, I can say with absolute certainty that 1/oo = 0,  1^oo = 1, sin(oo) is undefined, and (-2^oo)/(1^oo) is -oo.

Again, infinity is not a value or a number.

1/∞ is undefined. However, lim x->∞ 1/x is 0.

1^∞ is also not 1. Because lim x-> ∞ (1+1/x)^x is really Euler's constant, but the naive solution is 1^∞. In this case though, 1^ ∞ is indeterminate, because it has more than one value. That also makes -2^ ∞ /1^ ∞ indeterminate, though taken naively, the solution is indeed -∞

 

Infinity is more of a thought process than a value. It's something you use to when analyzing the behavior of an expression as the value grows larger. The expression never actually reaches that value, but effectively it is that value.

[vorticalbox]

I believe minute physics or vsause did a video on different size infinity, infinities? Lol

[Godlygamer23]

1 hour ago, vorticalbox said:

I believe minute physics or vsause did a video on different size infinity, infinities? Lol

And it is true, even with something like 2 and 3.

 

How many values exist between 2 and 3? An infinite number. The decimals just get smaller(the magnitude anyways. Physically, they get longer). 

[straight_stewie]

Just now, Yamoto42 said:

On the other hand, I can say with absolute certainty that 1/oo = 0

This is false. Infinitesimals are one of the corner stones of calculus. lim n->0+ is 0, but that's for a different reason. The only fraction that is truly = 0 is 0/n.

[rm -rf]

On 03/06/2016 at 6:18 AM, Telebubbies said:

Hey guys. Sorry if this is in the wrong Topic section, but I think that I should post it here. I am good with working on PCs and I also code some Java. Now at my school there is this really old lady who tried trash talking me about how a PC works in class. She says this: "A PC does not know what a 0 is. Only the numbers about it" or something like that. I do know that the system takes the number as nothing. It practically has no value. But I just want to ask you guys if a PC does know what a 0 is or does it not? 

In my country not everyone is good with technology.. (South Africa). 

 

Anyway, please answer. Ask if you don't understand what I am exactly talking about. 

I think I know what you're actually asking.

0 is an integer, in the same way 5 is.

[vorticalbox]

On ‎04‎/‎06‎/‎2016 at 9:28 PM, Telebubbies said:

No one really understands what she talks about. She crosses her arms when we all talk and say that there is a disease going around and we can catch it if we talk too much. But she seems like dead serious. And she is a grade 9 teacher!! 

sounds like a stuck up **** that finished her degree half a century ago and thinks she is smarter than everyone in the world.

 

when I was in college I knew more about html and css than the lecturer but rather than be a stuck up huffy pants used my knowledge when he needed it. Worked out quite well I ended up doing very little work in that class lol

 

 

[Telebubbies]

2 hours ago, vorticalbox said:

sounds like a stuck up **** that finished her degree half a century ago and thinks she is smarter than everyone in the world.

 

when I was in college I knew more about html and css than the lecturer but rather than be a stuck up huffy pants used my knowledge when he needed it. Worked out quite well I ended up doing very little work in that class lol

 

 

Lol, everyone who studies HTML should know it off by heart. It is so simple and self explanatory. 

[vorticalbox]

3 minutes ago, Telebubbies said:

Lol, everyone who studies HTML should know it off by heart. It is so simple and self explanatory. 

it was a lower end course that I used as a stepping stone to higher education. The colleges around here basically run Skelton crews in regards to teaching staff they actually have more support staff than lecturers.

 

the it staff were basically give more and more to teach with programmers ending up doing stuff like communication or maths.