really small values

[John Machin]

On 18/07/2007 7:13 AM, Dee Asbury wrote:
> In multiplying a value of xe^-325 with ye^-4, Python is returning zero. 
> How do I get it to give me back my tiny value?
> 

It is difficult to understand what you mean by xe^-325 etc ... in 
Python, ^ is the bitwise exclusive-or operator. The power operator is **

Consider this:

 >>> import math
 >>> math.exp(-325)
7.1497915694453328e-142
 >>>

In other words, e ** (-325) is of the order of 7.15 * 10 ** (-142)

Also consider that the smallest positive number that can be represented 
by the (almost universal) IEEE 754 64-bit floating-point representation 
is about 10**(-308).

So under one interpretation of "e^-325" (1.0e-325), your result is 
already effectively zero; under the other interpretaion (math.exp(-325)) 
it is nowhere near zero.

Perhaps you had better show us the (no more than 10) lines of actual 
runable Python code that demonstrate your problem.

HTH,
John