Re: [math-fun] Is zero “weakly positive”?
What? I find this hard to believe. I spent a year at a French math institute near Paris and never heard that "positif" includes 0. —Dan ----- In French, "positive" includes 0, whereas in English, it excludes zero. -----
It looks like my information is somewhat old (Bourbaki), and that recent usage is in line with English. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nombre_positif N. Bourbaki souligne : « On notera que 0 est l'unique élément à la fois positif et négatif ; tout élément x tel que 0<x (resp. x<0) est dit strictement positif (resp. strictement négatif). » N. Bourbaki wrote: "It will be noted that 0 is the unique element that is both positive and negative; an element x such that 0<x (resp. x<0) is said to be strictly positive (resp. strictly negative)." On Fri, Jul 27, 2018 at 2:52 PM, Dan Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net> wrote:
What? I find this hard to believe. I spent a year at a French math institute near Paris and never heard that "positif" includes 0.
—Dan
----- In French, "positive" includes 0, whereas in English, it excludes zero. -----
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-- Mike Stay - metaweta@gmail.com http://www.math.ucr.edu/~mike http://reperiendi.wordpress.com
Some French mathematicians still use “positif” when writing in French (and “positive” when writing in English) to mean greater than or equal to zero. I just came across an example a few minutes ago: Frederic Chapoton’s 2013 article https://arxiv.org/pdf/1301.1844.pdf, last updated in April 2018. Jim Propp On Saturday, July 28, 2018, Mike Stay <metaweta@gmail.com> wrote:
It looks like my information is somewhat old (Bourbaki), and that recent usage is in line with English.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nombre_positif
N. Bourbaki souligne : « On notera que 0 est l'unique élément à la fois positif et négatif ; tout élément x tel que 0<x (resp. x<0) est dit strictement positif (resp. strictement négatif). »
N. Bourbaki wrote: "It will be noted that 0 is the unique element that is both positive and negative; an element x such that 0<x (resp. x<0) is said to be strictly positive (resp. strictly negative)."
On Fri, Jul 27, 2018 at 2:52 PM, Dan Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net> wrote:
What? I find this hard to believe. I spent a year at a French math institute near Paris and never heard that "positif" includes 0.
—Dan
----- In French, "positive" includes 0, whereas in English, it excludes zero. -----
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
-- Mike Stay - metaweta@gmail.com http://www.math.ucr.edu/~mike http://reperiendi.wordpress.com
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Mike Stay