Thomas La Bone wrote:
> I get this answer from 1000 choose 100:
>
> float(combination(1000,100));
>
> 6.3850511926305126*10^+139
>
> but I get an error from 8000 choose 800:
>
> float(combination(8000,800));
>
> Maxima encountered a Lisp error:
> Error in SETQ [or a callee]: Can't print a non-number.
> Automatically continuing.
> To reenable the Lisp debugger set *debugger-hook* to nil.
>
> Mathematica gives me an answer of something like 2.819E+1040. Is the
> error the result of Maxima not being able to represent such a large
> floating point number?
>
> Tom
>
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try bfloat
(%i6) bfloat(binomial(8000,800));
(%o6) 4.22795262979594b1127
I don't know where you got that other number from Mathematica.
Indeed, the result cannot be represented within the range of
double-precision hardware floats. Mathematica uses a software float.
For Maxima, use bigfloats (bfloat) if you need extended range or precision.