Going past the float size limits?

[Hendrik van Rooyen]

"Steven D'Aprano" <stev....e.com.au> wrote:

> Calculating numbers like 10**520000 or its reciprocal is also a very good 
> exercise in programming. Anyone can write a program to multiply two 
> floating point numbers together and get a moderately accurate answer:
> 
> product = X*Y # yawn
> 
> But multiplying 200,000 floating point numbers together and getting an 
> accurate answer somewhere near 10**-520000 requires the programmer to 
> actually think about what they're doing. You can't just say:
> 
> A,T,C,G = (0.35, 0.30, 0.25, 0.10)
> product = map(operator.mul, [A*T*C*G]*200000)
> 
> and expect to get anywhere.
> 
> Despite my fear that this is a stupid attempt by the Original Poster's 
> professor to quantify the old saw about evolution being impossible 
> ("...blah blah blah hurricane in a junk yard blah blah Concorde blah blah 
> blah..."), I really like this homework question.

yes it got me going too - and I even learned about the gmpy stuff - so it was
a bit of a Good Thing...

- Hendrik