From: harper@mcs.vuw.ac.nz (John Harper)
Subject: Re: HP and TI Calculators' "error"
Date: 2 Oct 2000 20:10:16 GMT
Newsgroups: sci.math.num-analysis
Summary: [missing]

In article <39D83B1B.73AF3F62@anum.univ-st-etienne.fr>,
Olivier TITAUD  <otitaud@anum.univ-st-etienne.fr> wrote:
>Leonardo Luis Mattioli wrote:
>
>> Can anybody tell me why when you put 0^0, Texas Instruments and Hewlett
>> Packard calculators, both, give as answer 1 (0**0=1)?
>
>I think that you can say what you want for this problem.

It's very instructive to look up Jahnke & Emde, Tables of Functions
(Dover, 1945) Addenda p. 1 (immediately after p. 306) where there is
a plot of the surface z = x^y, for x >= 0 and z >= 0. There are four
conspicuous straight lines on it: 0^y=0,  1^y = 1,  x^0 = 1, 
0^0 = anything; and one inconspicuous straight line: x^1 = x. I have 
not found any computer graphics package that does such a good picture.  

John Harper, School of Mathematical and Computing Sciences, 
Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand
e-mail john.harper@vuw.ac.nz phone (+64)(4)463 5341 fax (+64)(4)463 5045