Abs but for ratios

[yakir12]

In order to make sure the difference between two numbers is positive, we use abs on their subtraction.
Is there an equivalent function that makes sure the ratio between two numbers is (say) larger than one?

I know I can:

fun(Φ) =  Φ < 1 ? 1/Φ : Φ

But the same can be argued for abs:

abs(Δ) =  Δ < 0 ? -Δ : Δ

I’m just wondering if I missed something.

[Tamas_Papp]

@yakir12

Is there an equivalent function that makes sure the ratio between two numbers is (say) larger than one?

I have not encountered a standard name for this. But if the domain is positive, why not use logs and take the absolute difference, eg

abs(log(r))

?

[yakir12]

Yea, you mean exp(abs(log(r))), expensive though. OK, thanks.

[Tamas_Papp]

No, I would just work with logarithms. This is pretty standard in statistics, as probabilities/likelihoods multiplied or divided run out of the range of Float64 very quickly (usually a few hundred or at best thousand values), whereas logs take you very far, and you just add/subtract.

If the ratios are trivial, you would of course be OK with something like

ifelse(r < 1, 1/r, r)

so it all depends on your application.

[yakir12]

Nice! Thanks.