power TypeErrors

[Fernando Pérez]

Michael Hudson wrote:

> For all my mathematical leanings, I still don't really see the point
> of having complex numbers native to a language.

Well, other than the fact that not having them is pretty much a slap in the 
face of everybody who does scientific computing, I guess it doesn't matter. 
The fact that C lacks native complex numbers is one of the reasons many hard 
core numerical computing people still frown upon it (not the only one).

The most trivial numerical problem with _real_ numbers can generate complex 
numbers in its solution (think any random polynomial root finding problem, or 
just about any eigenvalue problem you can write). Therefore we *NEEED* good 
complex number support in any language that is going to be taken seriously 
for scientific computing. I'm not sure what your background is, but I can 
tell you that python is gaining _very_ stronng support in scientific 
computing.

Cheers,

f.