Friday 13 February 2009

Surreal Numbers

Missmarketcrash has been dwelling on the bank thing whilst painting her nails in preparation for a holiday in Florida.  The idea of all these inspectors crawling like spiders over bank data is clearly Hollywood bound.  Especially as the numbers are bound to be surreal.

Surreal numbers are an actual mathematical construct by John Horton Conway and popularized in a geeky math novel by Donald Knuth with the most stunningly retro-chic title of "Surreal Numbers: How Two Ex-Students Turned on to Pure Mathematics and Found Total Happiness".  I must order that.  

"Every real number is surrounded by surreals, which are closer to it than any real number." states Wolfram Mathworld.  

Pitch that at the bank inspectors and the data will disperse in meaning all over the place as it should.  I now can go to bed happily without fear of dreaming of spiders again.

No comments: