lucidparadox wrote: > I'm currently new to Python and I haven't been able to find the > operator/math function to find the square root or even the x root of a > number.
For square root, use math.sqrt(y) For x root use y**(1/x) > I'm rewriting a program that I wrote in BASIC that does the > math of a quadratic equation (user puts in a, b, and c values) and > tells the user whether it has 1 root, 2 roots, or no real roots and > displays the roots if it has real roots. In floating point arithmetic, the naive way of calculating both roots always using the formula (-b +/- sqrt(b**2 - 4*a*c))/2*a will give you inaccurate results sometimes. See <http://www.cse.uiuc.edu/eot/modules/floating_point/quadratic_formula/>. For a better formula, see how r_1 and r_2 are defined in <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadratic_equation#Alternative_formula>. -- Michael Hoffman -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list