Mathematics desk
< July 17	<< Jun \| July \| Aug >>	July 19 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Mathematics Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

July 18[edit]

Awk[edit]

Is there any valid reason why Awk (number) redirects to Large numbers? There's no explanation in the article. Rojomoke (talk) 09:58, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'd guess because awk is able to handle fairly long numbers, it holds them in double precision float. But that's not a good reason for having that link so it should just be deleted. Dmcq (talk) 10:07, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Double precision float cannot compute N - (N - 1) correctly if N is Avogadro's number, so I'd say that awk doesn't deserve the redirect. (Neither is temporary real aka extended precision aka long double.) It would take a 79-bit significand to handle the "mol" version of Avogadro. Double and long double are still inadequate with 52 and 64 bits. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 12:00, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I found the redirect while looking for the AWK article, but I was wondering if there was a separate mathematical meaning to the term. Rojomoke (talk) 12:28, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just seconding Dmcq, after creating the redirect the same editor made a bunch of test edits, so it appears to me that the redirect was one as well, which would mean a speedy delete is in order. I can't find any mathematical meaning for awk.--RDBury (talk) 18:16, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In the future, this sort of notice would be better placed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. --Trovatore (talk) 18:21, 18 July 2014 (UTC) [reply]

It wasn't a notice, it was a question. I wonder if the poster was thinking of the Ackermann numbers, a sequence which rapidly gets into very large numbers. I think I've seen the word abbreviated as "ack", which might be confused with "awk". --50.100.189.160 (talk) 19:32, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It was a question, but not about math. It was more of a "what do we do about this page" sort of question, or at least that's my take on it. Those are more wikiproject-like. I don't want to belabor this; there was no real harm done. I just want people to be aware that the wikiproject exists, and that this is the sort of thing it's there for. --Trovatore (talk) 20:10, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nominated for deletion, although, as pointed out above, WT:MATH is a better place for the question or discussion. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:03, 23 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]