Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!think!snorkelwacker!mit-eddie!bbn!mephisto!ncsuvx!news
From: harish@ecebucolix.ncsu.edu (Harish P. Hiriyannaiah)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Not A Number in IEEE Math
Keywords: IEEE floating point
Message-ID: <1990Feb21.222755.26182@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu>
Date: 21 Feb 90 22:27:55 GMT
Sender: news@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu (USENET News System)
Organization: Dept. of ECE, North Carolina State University.
Lines: 27
References:<1990Feb19.172558.29696@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>

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# > As long as only very, VERY, large numbers (positive or negative) are
defined
# > to be NaNs (ie. not results of division by zero, and other silly
things), then
# > the above behaviour makes sense.
# > 
# > 
# > 		lim    __n__ = 1.0	and     lim   0.0 * n = 0.0
# > 	       n->inf    n		       n->inf
# > 
# > 	where inf is +/- infinity.


Sigh .....    I suppose you haven't had a basic course in limits of functions.
I thought any elementary course in Calculus will cover this topic.

The point is

inf/inf, 0/0, 0*inf, inf^0, 0^inf, inf-inf are all indeterminate. You have to
explicitly evaluate the limits in such cases. There are many ways of
doing this,
and one of  them is L' Hospital's rule.


harish pu. hi.				harish@ecebucolix.ncsu.edu