I don't think that sin(10) is a "surd", though it is certainly irrational and probably even transcendental.
If you look up definitions of "surd" online you get a quite incredible collection of conflicting answers, many of which (even in high school revision guides) are almost complete nonsense. But one thing I am confident about is that surds are algebraic! This is not strictly relevant to the point made by Brendan, but please can we have this put into the FAQ without using the word "surd"? You could change "surd value" to "symbolic value" here. John Cremona 2008/7/11 Jason Grout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > Brendan Arnold wrote: >> Hi there, >> >> Q: How do you evaluate or convert a surd value generated by SAGE into >> numerical output? >> >> A: Use the .n() method. i.e. >> >> sage: sin(10) >> sin(10) >> sage: sin(10).n() >> -0.544021110889370 >> >> This bugged me for ages when trying to export data to another program. >> >> Perhaps this should be made clearer in the tutorial? (its only used >> once and as an aside) >> > > > It sounds like this could be added to the FAQ if it's not already there. > You could add it: > > http://wiki.sagemath.org/faq > > Jason > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
