"Stavros Macrakis" <macrakis at alum.mit.edu> writes:
> n 4/11/07, Henning Siebel <henning.siebel at gmx.de> wrote:
>
> (%i1) 3*1.4^2;
> (%o1) 5.879999999999999
>
> Maxima uses native 64-bit floating-point arithmetic for numbers with decimal points,
> so rounding errors are of the order of 10^-16.
...
> This has nothing to do with Maxima,
Since it is Maxima giving the result, I'd say it has everything to do
with Maxima. Here, it has to do with the way that Maxima handles
floats.
It may be worth noting that both Axiom and my pocket calculator give
the correct answer to 3*1.4^2.
Jay