[Michael Hoffman] >> 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/>.
[lucidparadox] > Thanks. As of right now I'm just trying to familiarize myself with > the syntax of Python. Actually I should have thought of y**(1/x). math.sqrt(y) might be faster or even more accurate (depending on platform) than y**0.5. > I'm currently a freshman in college so the alternative formula hasn't > been introduced to me yet. It probably won't be unless you take a class in numerical analysis. Many a person has been burned by not thinking about these sorts of things until it is too late (myself included). -- Michael Hoffman -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list