Hmm... I think it's 2.. EVEN my other teacher long ago said .5 is not roundable...
Really? I remembered it the first time they told me.
Really? I remembered it the first time they told me.
Ok, this conversation just turned waaaaaay to nerdy for me (and I'm a physicist).
That's truncating, not rounding.
Of course it's arbitrary. It's also fairly consistent, with the majority of the world teaching this method (for many reasons) so that when someone describes rounding a perfect midpoint it is supposed to be understood what is meant without having to say it. That's why we have standards, so we can communicate ideas without having to explain exactly what is meant every single time.
Ok, fine! You got me <_< ... I'm still following the conversation with high interest :lol:Ok, this conversation just turned waaaaaay to nerdy for me (and I'm a physicist).
you sir are lieing...
)
Like jkt mentions, there are other methods of rounding. I conjecture that we generally use the "round up" method (well, actually, the "round away from 0" method) because it means it is possible to accurately round any floating-point number with more digits than the tenths place while only looking at the tenths place; 0.50001 is technically closer to 1 than 0, so rounding up is more accurate than rounding down. On the other hand, if we used the "round to even" rule, we would have to always remember to look past the tenths place and always round up if it isn't exactly *.5, because if we rounded 2.52 to 2, that would be less accurate than rounding it to 3. So rounding up always is a simplification, and a good one. But still, when rounding 1.5, both 1 and 2 are just as accurate choices, mathematically; it's the exact same difference.
Indeed, there are other methods, but as I said, they are irrelevant, and your argument shiftless. We have accepted standards such that the only time you should need to explain what you are doing is when you are violating those standard. No one mentioned which way the rounding was going when the question was posed, therefore we fall back on the accepted norm of rounding up for exact mid points. In fact, given the context and background information of the project, it becomes obvious that that was the intent. Your pedantry is incorrectly applied in this case.
What if the thing you are paying for & receiving is a Pandora, and the number refers to the number of Months wait?Real life tends to teach me otherwise although I don´t approve much to it when it comes to ethics...
It goes like this:
1.5 = 1 if I have to pay
1.5 = 2 if I have to receive
Here's what I think: when rounding 1.5 months to either 1 or 2 months, you'd better have justification, because you're either adding or subtracting 1/3 of the exact estimate! That's pretty significant! But if you must round, it hardly matters which way. 1 or 2 months, it's the same difference. Either way is 0.5 months difference, or approximately 15 days out of approximately 45. I may have to justify why it's going to be 15 days earlier, but you would just as well have to justify why it's going to be 15 days later. The only reason for justification being needed is it's a huge difference.
We're talking about Pandora delivery here, right? Given the history of the project, I think rounding 1.5 up to 2 months is pretty conservative
