[lojban] Re: round numbers

[Pierre Abbat <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

On Saturday 14 October 2006 04:54, Bob LeChevalier wrote:
> There is no requirement that lujvo have only two components, nor that
> they have few syllables, especially for an esoteric word used only in
> very limited fields.  I would go so far as to say that it is unLojbanic
> to do so.  Zipf's law says that COMMON words tend to be short, and
> uncommon words are LONG. I cannot imagine a language where a word for
> "complex numbers" or "round numbers" is such a common concept deserving
> to be a single short word.

Complex numbers are not used everywhere, but by no means are they esoteric. 
Elliptic curve groups and p-adic numbers are esoteric. And round numbers and 
rounding are used by everyone - if you see at the store a 527-gram box of 
pasta for $2.37 and compute the number of cents per gram, you will round it.

> Now you seem to be talking about a different sense of round number.  I
> think we have two concepts.  One is the number you get by rounding off,
> which need not be a power of 10, and is the meaning I think Nora was
> referring to.  You are talking about numbers that are integral exponents
> of base 10, which using your reasoning could be integral exponents of
> base n, where n is one of the places.

No I am not. I am talking about numbers whose prime factors are all 2, 3, 5, 
and maybe 7. It's a relative term; one number is more round than another, but 
I don't divide the numbers into the round and the unround. I've invented an 
unroundness metric; 2048 is about as round as 10. 864 and 540 are also round.

phma


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