I have difficulty understanding how small numbers are handled in
Maxima. Can someone please explain the following examples?
(%i1) log(1b-308),numer;
log: log(0) has been generated.
-- an error. To debug this try: debugmode(true);
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(%i2) find_root(log(x)=-300,x,1b-308,1);
(%o2) find_root(log(x)=-300,x,0.0,1.0)
----------------------
(%i3) find_root(x^2=1b100,x,0,1b105);
Maxima encountered a Lisp error:
*: floating point overflow
Automatically continuing.
To enable the Lisp debugger set *debugger-hook* to nil.
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(%i4) sqrt(1b-1000000);
(%o4) 1.0b-500000
----------------------
By the way, calling with bfloat() and increasing fpprec don't affect
the results.