2011-09-16, 17:17(-07), William Park: > 145557834293068928043467566190278008218249525830565939618481 > is awfully big number! :-)
3**2**62 is 3**(2**62), 3**4611686018427387904, not a number you can represent with 64bits, nor any reasonable number of bits, not (3**2)**62. Certainly not a number that bash arithmetic expansion can handle not even in floating mode. Wih zsh: $ echo $((exp((2**62)*log(3)))) inf. $ echo 'e((2^62)*l(3))' | bc -l Runtime warning (func=e, adr=123): scale too large, set to 2147483647 Fatal error: Out of memory for malloc. -- Stephane