Mathematics in Python are not correct

Terry Reedy tjreedy at udel.edu
Sun May 11 21:36:39 EDT 2008


"Tim Roberts" <timr at probo.com> wrote in message 
news:hkse24lhna7fp26tcfv5literfaded6nov at 4ax.com...
| wxPythoner at gmail.com wrote:
| >
| >I am stunned that this simple misunderstanding of mine ended in a
| >mathematical clash of a sort. :)  You guys really blew me away wih
| >your mathematical knowledge. And also the 0**0 is a thing I've never
| >thought about trying, until now that is. If the mathematical rule is
| >that EVERYTHING raised to the power of 0 is 1, then we should accept
| >that, even in the case of 0**0. This is just the way it is.
|
| Sure, but it's ALSO the mathematical rule that 0 raised to any power is 
0.

That may be some people's (partial) rule but not everyone's.
There is only agreement on 0 to a positive power.

| Thus, there are multiple solutions to this problem, meaning that there is
| NO solution to the problem.

Only for some people.
a**b := reduce(mul, [a]*b, 1) for all counts a and b is a simple, uniform, 
and useful rule.
Do you have in mind any situations in which it is advantageous to have 0**0 
undefined?

tjr






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