When something is an approximation to another thing can it be exact? Meaning can an approximation be the thing being approximated? A quote from wikipedia
An approximation is anything that is similar but not exactly equal to something else.
I know that wikipedia is not absolute source of knowledge so I wanted to be sure. Can I say that the number 2 is an approximation of the number 2?
EDIT: the meaning of exact is not what I need here, I want to know if approximation can be the same as what is being approximated. As I understand it and from the dictionary definition I find exact is something very similar or nearly identical. Still most of the definitions I find stress on the fact that an approximation can not be accurate. I guess my confusion is coming from the meaning of the word's translation in Bulgarian. For us an approximation can be exact.
EDIT2: trying to add a bit more context. I am writing about an algorithm that produces a solution that is close to the perfect solution, so I called that an "approximation". However there are application of the algorithm when it is guaranteed to find the perfect solution. Thus I got a comment that I can not call the algorithm an approximation when applied to those specific applications. I am trying to verify if this comment is adequate