better numbers, better engineering.
a number is data, not digits.
That numbers can't stand alone
is obvious. In Douglas Adams' sci-fi comedy A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is 42. This strikes us as funny because by itelf, a number is of course incomprehensible.
Engineering numbers are rarely so extreme in their lack of context, but uncertainty about what a number means, its origin, intent or even what units it is expressed in, is so common that we have learned to live with it. Every engineer or engineering manager has stared at a cell in a spreadsheet and wondered "is that the right number?". We try to label rows and columns properly, but might forget to change them when we paste in a different number. Did we remember to convert to cm from inches? Is it the original requirement or the updated requirement? It was right then, but is that still the best number to be using now?
That numbers are labor-intensive is something else we have learned to live with. Transfering a number from one application or data source to another is a manual task, as is converting among different units. A number rounded and formatted for presentation is different from what we need in a spreadsheet calculation. Just finding the right number and making sure we carry enough contextual information along takes effort. Verification and validation are labor intensive. All these tasks take concerted effort, and create opportunities for error, loss of information or doing the same thing over and over. Simple calculations, the kind we do all the time, often require unit conversions. Allowing for tolerance in calculations involves special tools and doesn't get done most of the time.
Truenumbers: a simple but big idea
In our computerized documents, spreadsheets and emails, instead of ordinary numbers, why not use hyperlinks that look like numbers, but carry with them enough information to answer all those questions, and to support automation of number-related tasks? That's a truenumber, and here's a simple example: 42 . Note that hovering with your mouse gives us some information about the number, and clicking brings you to a viewer page containing more information. Logged in as a Truenumber user, you can see even more, like what others may have said about the number last year, or even just a few seconds ago.
The Truenumber Framework is the set of technology you need to start using truenumbers instead of ordinary numbers. It consists of:
is obvious. In Douglas Adams' sci-fi comedy A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is 42. This strikes us as funny because by itelf, a number is of course incomprehensible.
Engineering numbers are rarely so extreme in their lack of context, but uncertainty about what a number means, its origin, intent or even what units it is expressed in, is so common that we have learned to live with it. Every engineer or engineering manager has stared at a cell in a spreadsheet and wondered "is that the right number?". We try to label rows and columns properly, but might forget to change them when we paste in a different number. Did we remember to convert to cm from inches? Is it the original requirement or the updated requirement? It was right then, but is that still the best number to be using now?That numbers are labor-intensive is something else we have learned to live with. Transfering a number from one application or data source to another is a manual task, as is converting among different units. A number rounded and formatted for presentation is different from what we need in a spreadsheet calculation. Just finding the right number and making sure we carry enough contextual information along takes effort. Verification and validation are labor intensive. All these tasks take concerted effort, and create opportunities for error, loss of information or doing the same thing over and over. Simple calculations, the kind we do all the time, often require unit conversions. Allowing for tolerance in calculations involves special tools and doesn't get done most of the time.
Truenumbers: a simple but big idea
In our computerized documents, spreadsheets and emails, instead of ordinary numbers, why not use hyperlinks that look like numbers, but carry with them enough information to answer all those questions, and to support automation of number-related tasks? That's a truenumber, and here's a simple example: 42 . Note that hovering with your mouse gives us some information about the number, and clicking brings you to a viewer page containing more information. Logged in as a Truenumber user, you can see even more, like what others may have said about the number last year, or even just a few seconds ago.
The Truenumber Framework is the set of technology you need to start using truenumbers instead of ordinary numbers. It consists of:
- Your Numberflow Server is special database where your numbers, calculations and metadata live. (availablle for in-house deployment, or hosted in the Amazon EC2 Cloud - contact us for details)
- Your Numberspace Dashboard is a web-hosted application for accessing Numberspaces in your server. There, you can create, tag and search for numbers, and use the units and tolerance-aware engineering calculator
- TrueOffice Add-in for Microsoft Office® which lets you copy truenumbers from one app to another, get automatic footnotes in Word, automatic row and column headers in Excel, and much more. Search for documents containing truenumbers anywhere on your desktop computer.
- Truenumber SDK for use in Microsoft Visual Studio, allows you to build your custom applications and user interfaces to accept truenumbers as input, and to dynamically access your server so your programs stay up to date with the latest parameters in your project.