exact decimal type, was: 12.3*70.95 a little bit weird
Subject: exact decimal type, was: 12.3*70.95 a little bit weird
From: Rudy J. Richardson
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2011 09:43:37 -0500 (EST)
Robert, Dan,
Scientific notation could be used to denote the exact signficant figures.
Rudy
On Wed, 30 Nov 2011, Robert Dodier wrote:
> Dan, as others have pointed out, the discrepancy you observed
> stems from floating point numbers being only approximations
> to decimal numbers.
>
> I wonder if it would be worth the trouble to invent an exact
> decimal type for Maxima. One can already get exact arithmetic
> by using fractions, e.g. 123/10 instead of 12.3 or 95/100 instead
> of 0.95, but that's kind of clumsy. How about something like,
> I don't know, 12.3x0 to denote a number exactly equal to 123/10 ?
> Any interest in that?
>
> best
>
> Robert Dodier
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