Tom Anderson wrote: > On Sun, 15 Jan 2006, Alex Martelli wrote: > >> Paul Rubin <http://[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >>> Mike Meyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >>> >>>> I'd like to work on that. The idea would be that all the numeric >>>> types are representations of reals with different properties that >>>> make them appropriate for different uses. >>> >>> >>> 2+3j? >> >> >> Good point, so s/reals/complex numbers/ -- except for this "detail", >> Mike's idea do seem well founded. > > > 1 ** 0.5 ?
[scratches head] I'm not sure what point you are making here. The square root of 1 is +1 (the negative root being explicitly rejected). Pure mathematicians, who may be expected to care whether the root is the integer 1 or the real number 1, are unlikely to write 1**0.5, prefering the squareroot symbol. For the rest of us, including applied mathematicians, 1**0.5 implies floating point, which implies the correct answer is 1.0. So I don't really know what point you are making. What solution(s) for 1**0.5 were you expecting? -- Steven. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list