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From: "Fred. Zwarts" <F.Zwarts@HetNet.nl>
Newsgroups: comp.theory
Subject: Re: Negative zero doesn't exist
Date: Sat, 31 May 2025 13:46:37 +0200
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Op 30.mei.2025 om 16:10 schreef Richard Damon:
> On 5/30/25 5:09 AM, Richard Heathfield wrote:
>> On 30/05/2025 09:16, Mikko wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> However, when working with approximate values it may be useful
>>> to know whether the true value is positive or negative even
>>> when for other values a little more or less is insignifcant.
>>> One such case is temperature where the difference between -0.1
>>> °C can be significantly different from +0.1 °C for practical
>>> purpoises even when the difference between, say, 5 °C and 6 °C
>>> isn't.
>>
>> Practical porpoises will avoid -0.1°C because it makes swimming too 
>> difficult.
>>
> 
> But porpoises swim in salt water, which will still be liquid at that 
> temperature, but colder than they like.
> 
> 
> Minus 0 in IEEE is mostly an artifact of the representation, being a 
> sign + magnatude representation.


Other systems have even more possibilities to represent 0. E.g., pencil 
and paper can be used to represent 0 as 0, 0.0, 0.00, 000, 00.0, 0.0E0, 
-0.0, etc. It is not uncommon that a single number can be represented in 
different ways in certain systems. Usually, nobody makes a problem of 
it, as it is understood that always the same number is represented.