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Talk:Convert decimal number to rational: Difference between revisions
Talk:Convert decimal number to rational (view source)
Revision as of 15:56, 21 August 2016
, 7 years agonew section →Task needs clarification / splitting up
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If you consider repeating decimals, then you're talking about rationals, and the task then consists in finding the numerator and the denominator of a rational, given its integer part and its possibly infinite, but repetitive list of decimals. This should be clarified imho.--[[User:Grondilu|Grondilu]] 00:21, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
== Task needs clarification / splitting up ==
Years after the above discussions, the task is still not clear. The solutions I checked have interpreted it in one of the three following ways:
# Take an '''exact''' rational number with a '''terminating decimal''' representation, and convert this representation to a fraction.
#: <small>This is what we've probably all had to do in math class in middle school. Multiply numerator and denominator by the appropriate power of ten to get an integer fraction, then reduce to lowest terms.</small>
# Take an '''exact''' rational number with a '''[[wp:Repeating_decimal|repeating decimal]]''' representation, and convert this representation to a fraction.
#: <small>Also middle-school level stuff, but slightly more interesting.</small>
# Take an '''inexact (floating-point) approximation''' of a rational number, and try to find the fraction that best matches it under certain parameters (e.g. limited digit size of the numerator/denominator).
#: <small>This one is more involved.</small>
This means that many of the solutions are currently not comparable with each other. I flagged the task with [[Template:Clarify task]] for now, but how should it be resolved? One idea would be to make this task about (1), with (2) as extra credit, and split off (3) as a separate task called "Approximate floating-point numbers as fractions" or similar. Thoughts?<br>
--[[User:Smls|Smls]] ([[User talk:Smls|talk]]) 15:55, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
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