[Maxima] Floating point problems

[Raymond Toy]

On 1/29/12 11:50 AM, Andrew Davis wrote:
> I understand all that it is not exact
> > At first I thought it was just rounding error on display
>
> but why is it not held in memory symbolically so that it can be
> factored and manipulated correctly.
>
+maxima-list

Because you told maxima you wanted a floating-point number by writing
8.14.  And it is being manipulated correctly (barring bugs) according to
floating-point arithmetic rules.

Ray