[X4U] Tiger's Calculator.app no longer does percentages?

Kuestner, Bjoern Bjoern.Kuestner at drkw.com
Mon Nov 28 05:43:54 PST 2005


> "1 + 1 = 200%" makes no sense at all.  "200%" of what?

The whole point is to underline that the %-symbol is just another way of
writing "*1/100" or "divide by 100". In fact, that's how the %-symbol
started in the first place.

http://www.roma.unisa.edu.au/07305/symbols.htm#Percent

I can see where you are coming from because asking "x% of what" is how
percentages are commonly used almost 100% (c: of the time. 

But at the end of the day, 1% is still nothing else but 1/100.
That's the definition of percentage: A fraction. 
You absolutely do not have to use another factor behind a percentage or any
other fraction.
You do not _have to_ specify "of what" any more than if you write "0.01".

Take it from teachers:
http://webinstituteforteachers.org/99/teams/rationals/glossary.html

Take it from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent 
"'one percent', represented by the symbol %, is simply the number 1/100, or
0.01"

Or take it from someone who has a master in math
http://myself.(c: 

And if you have Mathematica around feel free to have it evaluate 1% et
voila, it will not say syntax error. After all, all you did was enter a
number.

You can write write 50% and not ask "of what" like you can write 0.5 or 1/2
or 7 and not ask "of what". They are just numbers.

Of course, in real life you will more likely say 
"1/2 of my salary" or 
"7 tomatoes" or 
"50% of American adults"

But if the numbers are all that you want, then 50% is just as good as 2^3,
1.23, VII or whatever other numerical symbol mankind came up with.

The underlying problem, as others and I have posted before, is not that of
mathematical correctness. Tiger's calculator does it mathematically right.
It's a UI problem: 
	If 99% of the users expect the calculator to do something different,
should Apple then insist that their private professor at Berkeley confirms
they have it right? 
	And even more so since, as we all agree, in real life people will
use percentages almost exclusively with some other quantity.

> If your math instructors have taught you that this is mathematically and
> logically a correct and complete statement, your instructors need
> to be shot for being mormons.

Well, let's stay politically correct and make that "morons". A good friend
of mine is Mormon and he'd probably be offended had he not such a good sense
of humor. (c:

Bjorn
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