[seqfan] Re: What is the base 36 log of 10077696?

[Jim Nastos]

It is interesting behaviour... even in the online Wolfram Alpha:
The exact value of your logarithm is reported as the quotient of logs, and
its associated "approximate form" (i.e. floating point evaluation) displays
as 4.499999999999999999999999999999...

I am guessing that if a desired logarithm result is non-integer, a separate
numerical subroutine is used.
J

On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 4:01 PM, Alonso Del Arte
<alonso.delarte at gmail.com>wrote:

> What is the base 36 log of 10077696?
>
> Mathematica says (ln 10077696) / (ln 36), which numerically evaluates
> to 4.5, which then led me to try 36^(9 / 2), which indeed evaluates to
> 10077696. In the much smaller example log_4 8, Mathematica unhesitantly
> says
> 3 / 2. I'm wondering if there is some subtlety I have missed, or if maybe
> machine precision makes some kind of difference here.
>
> Al
>
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