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    #16
    Where was I? Drinking with other maths teachers.

    Originally posted by replicashooter View Post
    Whats the correct mathematical term for when the main numbers stay the same but their "scale" changes, like:

    164 is the same as 16.4 is the same as 16400 which is the same as 1640000000000000 and so on...

    There is a term for this kind of thing where all of the "proper" numbers are the same and the zeros and places are discounted and I'm wondering if any of you know what it is?
    Sounds like magic to me.

    I think you've mixed base-10 logarithms, scientific notation and a tiny bit of beer together to make something new.

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      #17
      Originally posted by redstar_dan View Post
      One plus one is window. Maths.
      WHOA! Hey Dan!

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        #18
        Originally posted by kryss View Post
        WHOA! Hey Dan!

        Hiyar, I came out of the woodwork

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          #19
          Floating point arithmetic?

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            #20
            Digits are identical, their place value changes.

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              #21
              There is no maths that has 16.4 = 164, because it isn't.

              You can write 164 as 1.64x10^2, or 16.4x10^1 or 1640000000000000x10^-13, but the proper format is
              digit point digit digit digit x10^something

              So you could say 164 = 16.4 x10^1

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                #22
                Its not maths in that sense its one word that refers to what I illustrated with the "effective numbers" being the same at different scales if one discounts the zeros and other punctuation.

                Thanks to everyone who has pitched in thus far, its none of those terms mentioned though as it was definitely one word.

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                  #23
                  Hmmm, well I would say order of magnitude as well.
                  Lie with passion and be forever damned...

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                    #24
                    I think Paulos hit it on the head right at the start, the 1 6 4 are significant figures, the trailing zeros are not.

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                      #25
                      I'd agree but its the one word term to describe them that I'm looking for.

                      It was something I read in an article once about the topic and the author used a specific term in his example to illustrate what he meant and that's what I'd like to recollect as it was something I read in print ages ago.

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                        #26
                        The trailing zeros are very significant! I mean the rightmost digit is the least significant because it represents the smallest unit but the fact that zeros follow is significant because the value is ten times larger every time you add a zero.

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                          #27
                          You know what I mean, they just describe the scale.
                          [MENTION=7878]replicashooter[/MENTION] Perhaps there is a word used to describe the "significant" portion and that is what you're thinking of.

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                            #28
                            Yes indeed, the term in question does refer solely to the "significant" numbers irrespective of where they are placed in the scale as that was the general gist of the paper and without knowing that word finding it again becomes a bit more challenging as there isn't such thing (yet) as a search engine that can take such a loose style of query, hence why I turned to the poindexters and allowed their nerdom to shine with no fear of wedgies, purple nurples/nipple cripples, Chinese burns, and nuggies from our resident metallically sheened simian moderator

                            It was a fascinating write up though and the guy really made his point well and once the term is remembered then we can discuss it further until then beat your thesaurus like you're trying to smack a high note out of it. Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

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