13 lines
2.3 KiB
HTML
13 lines
2.3 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>infinity</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../I.html" title="I"/><link rel="previous" href="Infinite-Monkey-Theorem.html" title="Infinite-Monkey Theorem"/><link rel="next" href="inflate.html" title="inflate"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">infinity</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="Infinite-Monkey-Theorem.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">I</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="inflate.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="infinity"/><dt xmlns="" id="infinity"><b>infinity</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> 1. The largest value that can be represented in a particular type of
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variable (register, memory location, data type, whatever). </p></dd><dd><p> 2. <span class="firstterm">minus infinity</span>: The
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smallest such value, not necessarily or even usually the simple negation of
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plus infinity. In <tt class="literal">N</tt>-bit twos-complement
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arithmetic, infinity is <tt class="literal">2<sup>N-1</sup> -
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1</tt> but minus infinity is <tt class="literal">-
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(2<sup>N-1</sup>)</tt>, not
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<tt class="literal">-(2<sup>N-1</sup> - 1)</tt>.
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Note also that this is different from <span class="firstterm">time T
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equals minus infinity</span>, which is closer to a mathematician's
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usage of infinity.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="Infinite-Monkey-Theorem.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../I.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="inflate.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Infinite-Monkey Theorem </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> inflate</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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