On 3/9/07, Jay Belanger <belanger at truman.edu> wrote:
>
> Then perhaps inf should stay out of arithmetic.
Yes, that is one possible conclusion, I agree. Though Maxima still has to
do *something* when confronted with expressions like 1+inf (currently leaves
it as is) and inf-inf (currently simplifies to 0, which is I think the kind
of example that motivates all this discussion).
I think 0^0=1 is fairly standard, even beyond Knuth.
> Are there any computer mathematical systems where 0^0 is not set to 1?
Let's not start that discussion now... but as it happens, Mathematica
returns Indeterminate and Maxima gives an error for 0^0.
-s