*** COMPLETELY OFF TOPIC *** Although machine precision (smallest numerical values that can be exactly represented) is important for numerical calculations, what is the smallest number that anyone has actually seen describing physical phenomena in science? I've seen values of ca. 1e-20 or so routinely used in physics on both size (e.g quarks) and time scales (lifetimes of evanescent particles). Beyond that about the smallest values I've seen are about 1e-40 or so seconds in discussions of Big Bang dynamics. Does anyone know of smaller ones (and those I've quoted might certainly be off somewhat).
Just curious. Hope this abuse of the list is not too egregious. Ignore if you think it is. Cheers to all, Bert Gunter Genentech Nonclinical Statistics ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
