[LEAPSECS] drift of TAI

[Magnus Danielson]

Rob Seaman wrote:

> On Sep 15, 2008, at 8:23 AM, Magnus Danielson wrote:

> 

>> There where plans for converting Sweden to a base 8 country, but I don't

>> have the TAOCP I need at hand to give the details.

> 

> This sounds like either an urban legend or some isolated...


You obviously haven't read Donald Knuths "The Art of Computer 
Programming; Seminumerical Algorithms" (Vol 2) where chapter 4.1 would 
be an interesting reading on the topic of number systems. Prof. Knuth is 
  fairly keen on researching his stuff.

Charles XII of Sweden (Carl XII in swedish texts) had the idea of 
radix-8 arithmetic 1717 but was killed in a battle before he could 
convert this idea into reality. He met Liebniz in 1707, but it is not 
known if Liebniz work on binary numbers was discussed or known to Carl.

I just didn't have that book at hand when I wrote that reference, but it 
was a quick thing to look up now as I have it at hand.

 > how do you say "nut job" in Swedish?

There are many ways to say it. I am not sure I can properly convey it in 
the 1717 lingo thougth. I think you are best served in this instance by 
learning what we call a nutter... "galenpanna". I think you would need 
to learn some grammar and more words to propperly use it in a 
meaningfull way thought.


> Another example would be the Indiana legislature voting on pi=3.


Don't bring US local legislation into this...

Cheers,
MAgnus