From: Bertram Scharpf <lists@...>
Date: 2005-03-20T06:12:37+09:00
Subject: Re: 0**0==1?

Hi,

Am Samstag, 19. M�r 2005, 22:00:57 +0900 schrieb Christian Neukirchen:
> Bertram Scharpf <lists@bertram-scharpf.de> writes:
> 
> > this is difficult to feed Google with:
> >
> >>> 0**0
> > => 1
> >>> 0**0.0
> > => 1.0
> >>> 0.0**0
> > => 1.0
> >>> 0.0**0.0
> > => 1.0
> >>> 
> >
> > Shouldn't the result be a NaN?
> 
> Interesting... Perl and Python say 0**0 is 1, Maxima (that should know
> better) says 0 but generates an error...
> 
> To quote http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ExponentLaws.html:
> > The definition 0**0=1 is sometimes used to simplify formulas, but it
> > should be kept in mind that this equality is a definition and not a
> > fundamental mathematical truth (Knuth 1992; Knuth 1997, p. 56).

Ah, okay. It's surely a matter of taste, but I would like to
say these definitions, 0 _and_ 1, are useful in languages
that cannot depict an illegal/undefined result.

Bertram


-- 
Bertram Scharpf
Stuttgart, Deutschland/Germany
http://www.bertram-scharpf.de