Hello David! On Thursday July 29 2010 01:00:15 David Hutto wrote: > but as a quick question, why does: > >>> 5e18 == 5**18 > > False 5e18 is a short form of a somewhat complex term: 5e18 == 5 * 10**18 == 5000000000000000000 But 5**18 is just the exponentiation operator: 5**18 == 3814697265625 Eike.