Do you really believe that -0.1 ** 0.1 is a valid computational problem ? Can you raise a negative number to a fractional power ? Output on my console (python 2.6)
>>> -.1 ** .1 -0.79432823472428149 >>> a,b = -.1,.1 >>> a**b Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> ValueError: negative number cannot be raised to a fractional power >>> -abs(a**b) Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> ValueError: negative number cannot be raised to a fractional power There is a little issue here that '>>> -.1 ** .1' should give you error message. That is it. On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 6:14 AM, Terrence Cole < list-s...@trainedmonkeystudios.org> wrote: > Can someone explain to me what python is doing here? > > Python 3.1.1 (r311:74480, Feb 3 2010, 13:36:47) > [GCC 4.3.4] on linux2 > Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. > >>> -0.1 ** 0.1 > -0.7943282347242815 > >>> a = -0.1; b = 0.1 > >>> a ** b > (0.7554510437117542+0.2454609236416552j) > >>> -abs(a ** b) > -0.7943282347242815 > > Why does the literal version return the signed magnitude and the > variable version return a complex? > > Cheers, > Terrence > > -- > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list >
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