Zack_M_Davis comments on Where Fermi Fails: What is hard to estimate? - Less Wrong

6 Post author: tgb 05 June 2012 03:15AM

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Comment author: Zack_M_Davis 05 June 2012 05:48:23AM *  0 points [-]

(For the record)

Python 3.2.2 (default, Sep 5 2011, 21:17:14) [GCC 4.6.1] on linux2 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> from math import tan, pi >>> tan(10**100) -0.4116229628832498 >>> tan((180/pi)*(10**100)) # degrees 2.415162133199225
Comment author: ciphergoth 05 June 2012 06:34:28AM *  3 points [-]

Of course Python has no chance of getting this right. As Feynman says, you have to multiply 2*pi by 10^100, and throw away the integer part; so the right place to start is a record of pi to 100 decimal places.

Comment author: Zack_M_Davis 05 June 2012 07:12:05AM 0 points [-]

(I really need to be more careful; this isn't the first time I've been caught making a trivial error in public, and it's starting to get embarrassing.)

Comment author: ciphergoth 06 June 2012 07:00:42AM 2 points [-]

Well, what I wrote was wrong too - what matters is the non-integer part of 10^100/(2*pi).

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