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Re: [Phys-l] a different kind of math background quiz



Note that even on the first question, I was a bit confused by the answer that google gave me. I thought, "Well, it's obviously 2 for the remainder, since if I subtract two from the dividend, that'll be all nines and divide evenly." Then, when I plugged 1000000001/9 into google, expecting to get 0.2222... for the fractional part of the remainder, I instead got what was explicitly an integer: 111111111. Boooo, google!

I'm not actually confused by it, but it should be addressed better. If you do coding with integers, and perform that or similar divisions, the answer is all 1s as you noted. But only a soon-to-be-unemployed coder would leave things that way, without clarifying.

The explanation would not seem to be that arcane. The google calculator appears to be limited to 9 digits total. Seems reminiscent of very old calculators - disappointing to say the least.


Stefan Jeglinski