User talk:TheGreatDuckINH

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Hello, TheGreatDuckINH, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:
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Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! 𝕃eegrc (talk) 14:39, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Edits to Floor and ceiling functions‎
I undid the edits that you made to the Floor and ceiling functions‎ article yesterday. I appreciate very much that you are working to improve Wikipedia and I almost did not undo the edits for that very reason. However, I felt that the changes you made were not appropriate for the article. The function you provided could have been replaced with many other functions, for example the hyperbolic tangent. Furthermore, the function provided a very time-expensive way to compute the sign of a number, which generally is much more easily achieved.

If you think I undid your edit in error, I encourage you to make another edit to the article. If you do, please try to both accomplish your aims and address my concerns. 𝕃eegrc (talk) 14:40, 7 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Sir, you are not making much sense. Since when does the arc tangent only return two values? This has absolutely nothing to do with the sign of a number. It was a formula that computes whether a number is greater than another. It's impossible to do it without /some/ version of floor.


 * TheGreatDuckINH (talk) 17:38, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

I meant that $$\lfloor \tanh(x) \rfloor + 1$$ would work as well as the function you provided, $$ \lfloor x / (x^2 + 1)^{1/2} \rfloor + 1 $$, and that both are inefficient ways to compute the sign of x. (And to clarify in case it wasn't simply a typo on your part, that is a hyperbolic tangent, not an arc tangent.) Thank you for your continuing contributions to Wikipedia. I am hopeful that we will converge to a wording that has wide acceptance. 𝕃eegrc (talk) 18:27, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Comparison to zero is a trivial and extremely fast operation on every modern computer chip. Thus, the question of x to y is quickly checked by comparing $x − y$ to zero. No use of the floor function is required. 𝕃eegrc (talk) 18:42, 7 March 2016 (UTC)


 * What? I'm not talking about computers. I'm talking about being able to use the comparison operator independently of computer science as a mathematical operator. That's how we turn piecewise functions into a single equation. A computer never uses a formula for that (unless someone is being stupid). It just uses an algorithm. I'm talking about a mathematical version that can be used in equations.


 * TheGreatDuckINH (talk) 18:45, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

A more direct, algorithm-free way to write the function that is 1 when $z ≥ y$ and is otherwise 0 is $θ(z – y)$ … or $χ_{[z ≥ y]}$. The surest way to win acceptance of your text is to show that a reliable source considers it noteworthy. 𝕃eegrc (talk) 18:49, 7 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I have no idea what those things even are.


 * TheGreatDuckINH (talk) 19:03, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

The $θ(z – y)$ formulation is the Heaviside step function. The $χ_{[z ≥ y]}$ formulation is an Indicator function. 𝕃eegrc (talk) 19:13, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Well, two things. One, that indicator functions look interesting and I might go ahead and read that simply because it's interesting looking. Two, the heavyside step function, is what I'm describing. It's just the heavyside expressed as floor. Unfortunately, I only saw it as comparison. My bad. In that case, I propose it be used as a definition or alternative expression of the heavyside function since that appears to be the exact same thing. After all, that would be useful if someone was attempting to use identities among the different piece wise functions.

TheGreatDuckINH (talk) 19:21, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

March 2016
Hello, I'm DVdm. I noticed that you made a change to an article, Floor and ceiling functions, but you didn't provide a source. I’ve removed it for now, but if you’d like to include a citation to a reliable source and re-add it, please do so! If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks. DVdm (talk) 18:17, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Please do not add or significantly change content without citing verifiable and reliable sources. Before making any potentially controversial edits, it is recommended that you discuss them first on the article's talk page. Please review the guidelines at Citing sources and take this opportunity to add references to the article. DVdm (talk) 18:20, 7 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Note: all interesting, but please have a look at wp:VERIFIABILITY, wp:NOR and wp:CALC. Cheers. - DVdm (talk) 18:26, 7 March 2016 (UTC)