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From: mjo@ttardis.UUCP (Mike O'Connor)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.math,sci.misc,ut.general,uw.general,uw.math.grad,york.general
Subject: Re: Subtle Math Questions
Message-ID: <2730@ttardis.UUCP>
Date: 23 Apr 91 16:36:27 GMT
Organization: Artificial Intelligence Society
Lines: 20

In article <1991Apr22.235606.10856@ms.uky.edu>, ghot@ms.uky.edu (Allan Adler) writes:

>(2) We routinely allow students to use calculators. We do not
>    normally teach them how to know how much confidence they
>    can have in the answer the calculator gives. Of course,
>    that depends to some extent on the calculator and on the
>    problem it is given.
>  (a) What are some simple tests we can give to a calculator to
>      determine the nature of the errors it will give us ?

Well...  on an HP-11 or 15, you can take the cosine of pi/2 and get
a number that is not zero.  It's rather annoying.

					...Mike


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