Re: [Axiom-developer] [Richard Fateman <address@hidden>] Re: [Maxima] strange behaviour with simple decimals / Axiom

[Bill Page]

Quoting Gabriel Dos Reis <address@hidden>:

> FYI. 

Here is the result from Maxima:

Maxima 5.11.99rc1 http://maxima.sourceforge.net
Using Lisp GNU Common Lisp (GCL) GCL 2.6.8 (aka GCL)
Distributed under the GNU Public License. See the file COPYING. 
Dedicated to the memory of William Schelter. 
This is a development version of Maxima. The function bug_report()
provides bug reporting information. 
(%i1) 1.4^2;
(%o1)                                1.96
(%i2) 1.96 - 1.4^2;
(%o2)                       2.2204460492503131E-16
(%i3)

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Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 17:54:35 -0700
Subject: Re: [Maxima] strange behaviour with simple decimals / Axiom
From: Richard Fateman <address@hidden>
To: address@hidden
In Axiom version of  1/17/2005

1.4^2  comes out as 1.96

1.96 - 1.4^2  comes out as  0.7 E -20

I don't know if this counts as unexpected to a 5th grader, but does a
5th grader even know about "E" scientific notation?

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What's his point?

Regards,
Bill Page.