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Question about exponent shorthand

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg83803] Question about exponent shorthand
• From: Curtis Osterhoudt <cfo at lanl.gov>
• Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 05:38:36 -0500 (EST)
• Organization: LANL
• Reply-to: cfo at lanl.gov

Hi, all, 

   I've just got used to using the character shortcut *^ to stand for "times 
10 to the power of". As expected, these two expressions work:
   1*^5   --> 100000
   1*^-5  --> 1/100000

But putting parentheses around the exponent (as I'd prefer to do for 
readability) leads to 

  Input: 1*^ (-5)

   Output:  Syntax::sntxb:Expression cannot begin with "1.(-5)".

                 Syntax::tsntxi:"1.^" is incomplete; more input is needed.

                 Syntax::sntxi:Incomplete expression; more input is needed.


This is on

 In[45]:= $Version

Out[45]= "6.0 for Linux x86 (32-bit) (June 19, 2007)"

   
          Any clues?

         

-- 
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Curtis Osterhoudt
cfo at remove_this.lanl.and_this.gov
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• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Question about exponent shorthand
    • From: Murray Eisenberg <murray@math.umass.edu>