strange behaviour with simple decimals



Hi,

Actually, 1.4^2 is not exactly 1.96 in Maxima.. for example..

					2
(%i1) 				     1.4
(%o1) 				     1.96
(%i2) 				   1.96 - %
(%o2) 			    2.2204460492503131E-16

Regards,
bowo


On 11/04/07, Henning Siebel <henning.siebel at gmx.de> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> can anybody help my with this result:
>
>   Maxima 5.11.0 http://maxima.sourceforge.net
>   Using Lisp CLISP 2.41 (2006-10-13)
>   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) 3*1.4^2;
>   (%o1)                          5.879999999999999
>
>
> It obviously should be 5.88. Is there a reason, why maxima produces this result,
> or is this a bug?
>
> Regards,
>          Henning
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