12-06-2016, 09:41 AM
Hi Maelum, Welcome to OA!
I'll admit I'm not familiar with this term either, but a bit of googling leads me to thing it relates to the term Internet Relay Chat, specifically to the idea that this has rules that might eventually evolve into a sort of language.
This might have seemed more plausible at the time this article was written (2001) than today, when smartphones give you the option of qwerty keyboards and voice to text as a matter of course. If we were writing the article now, it might make reference to some fictional language based on emoticons or the like
Hopefully, if I'm offbase here, some other member will jump in and correct me.
This relates to the use of scientific notation for dealing with really large numbers and the limitations of representing it online. We tend to use a lot of scientific notation in OA because we are often talking about very big or very small values and its much easier to present them this way then writing out tons of zeros.
The problem with this is that neither the OA forum, nor the Content Management System we use to load material to the webiste, nor most word processors and so on easily let you generate scientific notation, specifically the little superscripts after the 10 (although current systems are probably better at it).
A way of dealing with this that was developed in various online communities many years ago was to have the letter 'E' (or sometimes 'e') represent the 'x10' bit and to have a regular textual number replace the superscript.
So, the number 5.09911E21 that you mention above could be written out as:
5,099,110,000,000,000,000,000
or
5.09911x10(21) (with 21 as a superscript - which I don't know how to generate in the forum:p)
or
5.09911E21
or
5.09911e21
In a nutshell, its a way of writing out large numbers faster and more easily and on a computer.
Hope this helps, and if you have any additional questions, please feel free to post em here or in whatever sub-forum or thread seems appropriate.
And once again: Welcome to OA
Todd
(12-06-2016, 08:40 AM)Maelum Wrote: Hey, my name is Maelum. I've been checking this website out for the past few days now and i am very impressed by the stuff I have read so far and I can't wait to read more things added to the website
I'll admit I'm not familiar with this term either, but a bit of googling leads me to thing it relates to the term Internet Relay Chat, specifically to the idea that this has rules that might eventually evolve into a sort of language.
This might have seemed more plausible at the time this article was written (2001) than today, when smartphones give you the option of qwerty keyboards and voice to text as a matter of course. If we were writing the article now, it might make reference to some fictional language based on emoticons or the like
Hopefully, if I'm offbase here, some other member will jump in and correct me.
(12-06-2016, 08:40 AM)Maelum Wrote: The other is a more scientific term I guess but it's in reference to the Ultimate Chip: stuff like processing 5.09911 "E21 bits" per second, storing about 4.88 "E20 bits" and transmitting information at bandwidth rates of 8.77 "E23 bits" per second. Could someone please help explain these terms to me?
-Maelum
This relates to the use of scientific notation for dealing with really large numbers and the limitations of representing it online. We tend to use a lot of scientific notation in OA because we are often talking about very big or very small values and its much easier to present them this way then writing out tons of zeros.
The problem with this is that neither the OA forum, nor the Content Management System we use to load material to the webiste, nor most word processors and so on easily let you generate scientific notation, specifically the little superscripts after the 10 (although current systems are probably better at it).
A way of dealing with this that was developed in various online communities many years ago was to have the letter 'E' (or sometimes 'e') represent the 'x10' bit and to have a regular textual number replace the superscript.
So, the number 5.09911E21 that you mention above could be written out as:
5,099,110,000,000,000,000,000
or
5.09911x10(21) (with 21 as a superscript - which I don't know how to generate in the forum:p)
or
5.09911E21
or
5.09911e21
In a nutshell, its a way of writing out large numbers faster and more easily and on a computer.
Hope this helps, and if you have any additional questions, please feel free to post em here or in whatever sub-forum or thread seems appropriate.
And once again: Welcome to OA
Todd