Newsgroups: sci.math
From: hoey@aic.nrl.navy.mil (Dan Hoey)
Date: 16 Nov 1994 23:07:02 GMT
Subject: Re: 0 ^ 0 = ?

ed...@math.ohio-state.edu (Gerald Edgar) writes:

> 0^0 = 1, as has been noted.  But 0.0^0.0 = ???
> Most of the arguments for 0^0=1 [presented here, in the FAQ,
> and in Knuth's paper] apply to the case when the exponent
> is the integer zero.  They do not apply when the exponent
> is floating-point zero.

Well, sci.math and its FAQ are about the zero that occurs in the
integers, a subset of the real numbers.  As far as most mathematicians
are concerned, the real number 0 is the same 0 as the integer 0.

We don't usually deal with approximations, such as floating point,
that are mostly of use to computer implementations and programming
languages.  That's what comp.arch.arithmetic is for.

Dan Hoey
Hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil