Decimals to improper fractions program?

[pier4r]

(06-09-2018 12:55 AM)Valentin Albillo Wrote:  Not necessarily. Rational people can "agree to disagree" in fields which are amenable to subjective opinions but Mathematics is not one of them, Mathematics is fact-based and evidence-based, so there's little or no place for subjectivism.

For the little that I know there is something really subjective to which every system is based (math, logic, English, whatever). They are called axioms (or postulates, or in other cases assumptions and definitions). If I reject one of your axioms, a legit action (if you think the contrary, well...), there is little to discuss.

If I remember correctly already Aristotle in the "Sophistical Refutations" said more or less something like "if we do not set a common base of concepts from which we discuss, we may end talking about different things". (n1)

I guess in the particular case one agrees to disagree when the terms are not well specified for the participants and therefore there is ample space for personal interpretation. In this case I see it in the part "almost".

For example I can say "the number 1 is almost equal to the number R, with R arbitrarily large". Immediate problems in the sentence: "almost", "large".

This to say: let's not claim total precision in mathematics when there are a lot of source of misunderstandings and interpretation.

n1: Then, but that is another story, there is the extreme unlucky case of total absence of fruitful communication in the case that, even when all the speakers agree on the definitions, axioms and so on; there is the chance that the language used to describe them is used by each speaker with a different arrangement of meaning for each word used in the description.