The Mac calculator doesn't seem to be accurate.

[dogbone]

I was just innocently trying to work out if all the gold ever mined is really equal to a cube with sides of 20 metres.

My final check involved dividing 8,000,000,000 by 760

but it doesn't work. In fact I can't even input 8,000,000,000 it will only let me input 800,000,000 even though if I multiply 2k x 2k x2k the viewer does indeed show 8,000,000,000 even though I cannot input that number.

Anyway as a compromise I tried to divide 800,000,000 by 76 and got...

1.05263158E(division sign)7

What's going on. I have reskinned the calculator could that be the problem?

as it turns out my numbers are incorrect I should be dividing by 51,760 nevertheless the numers are wrong.

 

[RedTomato]

Works fine on my apple calculator application.

Gives me the answer 10526314789373.68

Cross checking with Google Calculator, entering

8 trillion divided by 760

gives me

8 trillion divided by 760 = 1.05263158 × 10^10

(Assuming that Google uses USA trillion : )

Seems your answer is right as far as the digits go, not too sure about the minus sign tho.

Maximum number of significant digits on my calculator seems to be 16, i.e i can enter 8,000,000,000,000,000, before it starts using scientific notation.

BTW was curious to find the absolute largest number it can handle -

switch to View/ Advanced (scientific mode)

enter 171 followed by pressing x! [tells the calc to work out 1x2x3x4x5.. up to x]

will give you = 7.257415615308004e+306

i.e. 7 followed by 306 digits

Also does calculations in various bases, ASCII, Unicode, power/ weight/ energy/ mass/ currency conversions etc

Activating the 'Paper Tape' in the View menu will let you copy and paste full calulations.

More useful than I thought

Tho the currency conversion crashed when asked to update the rates, as it was using currency rates from 2002/2003

cheers

.. RedTomato ..

 

[dogbone]

I forgot about the normal calculator app, I was using the calculator widget which was showing some strange behaviour

 

[dogbone]

I forgot about the normal calculator app, which does indeed work fine, I was using the calculator widget which was showing some strange behaviour

 

[telecomm]

Anyway as a compromise I tried to divide 800,000,000 by 76 and got...

1.05263158E(division sign)7

What's going on.

That answer given by the calculator widget is correct, 1.05263158E÷7 is a shorthand for 1.05263158 * 10^7, which equals 10,526,315.8, the correct answer (rounded to one decimal place).

 

[mwpeters8182]

That looks right to me. I don't undertand what your problem is.

 

[mkaake]

truncation error. the calculator will only carry so many digits (when it shows x.xxxxxxxxx x10^y, it's not carrying y digits the whole way through)... so I'm guessing that the widget doesn't carry as many digits during calculation than what the calculator app does. Which makes sense, in a way, because the widget is meant to be a small quick reference app...

 

[Appleton]

Mac Calculator

I get accurate answers on my calculator that's on the Dashboard, but not from the one on the Dock.
Is there a way to "fix" this? I depend on the calculators a lot.

 

[Tallest Skil]

I get accurate answers on my calculator that's on the Dashboard, but not from the one on the Dock.
Is there a way to "fix" this? I depend on the calculators a lot.

THIS is from 2005. He's even been BANNED. You won't find any help from them. What is the discrepancy?