Re: [prolog-standard] Re: log10/1, log/2, min/2, and max/2

I wrote:
        I have to leave in a few minutes, and the Department is closed tomorrow
        for a funeral, so I don't have time to reply at once in full to
        Joachim Schimpf's <js10_at_crosscoreop.com> important contribution to this
        thread.
        
But I DO have time to point you to

    http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Maximum.html

    Maximum

    The largest value of a set, function, etc.
    The maxiumum value of a set of elements $A = \{a_i\}_{i=1}^N$
    is denoted $\max A$ or $\max_i a_i$,
==> and is equal to the last element of a sorted (i.e., ordered)
==> version of $a$.

The point I am making is that max(_,_) and min(_,_) are intimately and
essentially bound up with (<)/2 and its relatives, so that any data type
which cannot be sorted (as intervals cannot) doesn't *have* a maximum
or minimum.

I am about as far from denying the usefulness of meet and join as
you could possibly imagine. (The title of my PhD was "Logic and Lattices
for a Statistics Advisor", after all.) I just don't want them confused
with maximum and minimum.

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Received on Mon Jul 14 2008 - 13:01:03 EST