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sum question

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg91169] sum question
  • From: "Kopp, Philip F" <philip-kopp at uiowa.edu>
  • Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 07:14:17 -0400 (EDT)

Hi, I am trying to work with a rather large sum(>200 terms)  in Mathematica , but the program displays some odd behavior.
When I multiply each term in the sum by 1, I get 1 for the answer.  When I change 1 to 1.0, I get an incredibly large number for the answer.
There seems to be some problem with using decimal numbers in this large sum. I tried Rationalize[1.0], and it works.  What I am really trying to do is multiply each term by a different number(all less than one) that I calculated in another program.  These numbers are in decimal form, so I run into the same problem.  When I try rationalize here, it doen't fix the problem.  Any other suggestions?


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