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Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! - weekly Python news and links (Mar 17)

Erik Max Francis max at alcyone.com
Thu Mar 20 18:58:02 EST 2003 
Michael Hudson wrote:

> Well, I guess.  But rationality seems a much more tractable notion
> than normality -- it seems "finite" in some sense.  I'm not sure
> rationality is that good an example, as having irrationals is somehow
> the point of the reals...  Transcendence would be a better example,
> but I'm an algebraist -- what's a transcendent number, again? <wink>.

Real numbers are divided into two types:  algebraic and transcendental. 
Algebraic numbers are those which are the root of any polynomial
equation with integral coefficients; transcendental numbers are those
which cannot.  The square root of two is algebraic, for instance, but e
and pi are transcendental.  All rational numbers are algebraic, and all
transcendental numbers are irrational, but not all irrational numbers
are transcendental.

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