Re: Countchars

[David Auerbach auerbach@xxxxxxxx]

On Feb 14, 2005, at 12:41 AM, Carl Distefano wrote:
> > If I like to have the exact number of characters, it's only
> > necessary to add the number of footnotes.
>
> Well, the total number of digits, anyway. Because 10 footnotes
> equals 11 chars, 11 footnotes equals 13 chars, etc., etc. Actually,
> it's a mildly interesting math problem. How do you compute the
> length of a series of integers from 1 to n ? Here's how, in XPL:
Weird. I was just reading a piece in this morning's NYTimes on Gödel.
(A terrible piece, of course. ) It refers, clumsily and obliquely, to
the arithmetization of syntax. There are various ways to accomplish
that, Gödel having shown us the basic idea in 1931. Since synatactic
properties end up mirrored in arithmetic properties, one standard
arithmetic function that gets defined is precisely your "length of"
function (and variants). In one elegant approach (where gödel
numbering is done with respect to a variable base) the length function
is very simple.
 Of course, in this context base 10 will do.




David Auerbach
Department of Philosophy & Religion
Box 8103
NCSU
Raleigh, NC 27695-8103