this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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xkcd

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cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/8653164


Transcript:

Cueball: Hey, check it out: e^π^−π is 19.999099979. That's weird.
Black Hat: Yeah. That's how I got kicked out of the ACM in college.
Cueball: ...what?

Black Hat: During a competition, I told the programmers on our team that e^π^−π was a standard test of floating-point handlers -- it would come out to 20 unless they had rounding errors.

Cueball: That's awful.
Black Hat: Yeah, they dug through half their algorithms looking for the bug before they figured it out.

Hover text:

Also, I hear the 4th root of (9^2^ + 19^2^/22) is pi.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (10 children)

I get that it's a comic but this doesn't feel like a conversation that would ever occur in real life. Granted I don't hang out with programmers or mathematicians so maybe it's more plausible than you would think.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Oh grad school man. Yes it would. I was also amazed that there would be people sitting at the bar who could read hieroglyphics. And random shit like that.

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