| Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 20:11:03 -0400
 | From: Paul Schlie <xxxxxx@comcast.net>
 |
 | > If we make (/ +1 0.0) ==> #i+1/0, then (/ -1 0.0) ==> #i-1/0.
 | > This choice is arbitrary; ...
 |
 | - which seems very reasonable.
 |
 | >  | > Inexact infinities have reciprocals: zero.  Their reciprocals
 | >  | > are not unique, but that is already the case with IEEE-754
 | >  | > floating-point representations:
 | > ...
 | > Zero is at the center of 0.0's neighborhood.  R5RS division by 0.0
 | > is an error; leaving latitude for SRFI-70's response.
 |
 | - also seems very reasonable, and provide the opportunity to reconsider
 |   eliminating IEEE-754's otherwise inconsistent asymmetry, by defining:
 |
 |   (/ #i-0/1) => #i-1/0 ; -inf.0
 |   (/ #i+0/1) => #i+1/0 ; +inf.0
 |
 |   thereby truly consistently symmetric with the above:
 |
 |   (/ #i-1/0) => #i-0/1 ; -0.0
 |   (/ #i+1/0) => #i+0/1 ; +0.0

It does not remove the asymmetry -- which neighborhood does (unsigned)
0.0 belong to: -0.0 or +0.0?

 | > Most neighborhoods mapping through piecewise-continuous functions
 | > project onto adjacent neighborhoods.  But / near 0 is not the
 | > only function which does not.  TAN near pi/2 is another example.
 |
 | - and please reconsider this may be consistently symmetrically defined:
 |   [where ~ denotes a value being simultaneously positive and negative]
 |
 |   (/ #i~0) => #i~1/0 ; ~inf.0
 |   (/ #i~1/0) => #i~0 ;   ~0.0

#i~0 is not a real number because it cannot be ordered (relative to
0.0).  Damaging the total ordering of the real numbers is too high a
price for symmetry.

 |   (tan pi/2) => #i~1/0 ; ~inf.0

  (atan #i+1/0)			==> 1.5707963267948965

The next larger IEEE-754 number is  1.5707963267948967.
But there is no IEEE-754 number whose tangent is infinite:

  (tan 1.5707963267948965)	==> 16.331778728383844e15
  (tan 1.5707963267948967)	==> -6.218352966023783e15

Note that the one-sided LIMIT gets it right without needing any new
numbers:

  (limit tan 1.5707963267948965 -1.0e-15)       ==> +1/0
  (limit tan 1.5707963267948965 1.0e-15)        ==> -1/0

 |   (abs ~inf.0) => +inf.0
 |   (- (abs ~inf.0) => -inf.0
 |   (abs ~0.0) => +0.0
 |   (- (abs ~0.0)) -0.0
 |
 |   (+ +0.0 -0.0) => ~0.0
 |
 |   Where I believe it's reasonable to redefine the use of IEEE's NAN
 |   values to encode these values, as arguably ~inf.0 may be thought
 |   of as being NAN, and ~0.0 as being 1/NAN (leaving 0.0 == +0.0)

For some expressions returning #i0/0, no number has any more claim to
correctness than any other.  For example any number x satisfies:

  0*x=0.

So #i0/0 could be any number (if we forget that division by zero is
undefined).  The reciprocal of this #i0/0 potentially maps to any
number; which is represented by #i0/0.