On 8/28/07, William Stein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> In SAGE until now 0^0 gave 1 as answer.  We are almost certainly going to 
> change
> this to raise an ArithmeticError.  Does anybody have any strong
> feelings about this?
> By the way, Magma, PARI, Gap, and Maple all give 1 as the output for 0^0.
> Mathematica and Maxima both raise an error.

[I just recently joined this list; please forgive my ignorance about
the details of SAGE.]

What will be the result if one or more of the operands are
floating-point zeroes rather than integer zeroes?

Maple gives 0^0=1 for integral inputs, but 0.^0. (note the decimal
place indicating a float input) simplifies to the symbolic quantity
'Float(undefined)'.  It is my understanding that this discrepancy
between integers and floats was maintained out of a desire to keep
float operations conforming to IEEE 754.  In neither case does the
operation raise an error.

If 0.^0. in SAGE (however that's expressed) also raises an
ArithmeticError, it may be worth investigating whether raising an
error under these circumstances is consistent with IEEE 754, if such
consistency is desired in SAGE.

regards,

Steve

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