It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is. In other words, floating point operations in binary computers can give unintuitive results; welcome to the

It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is. In other words, floating point operations in binary computers can give unintuitive results; welcome to the bizarre world of programming. This may be a useful starting point for reading: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1167691/ieee-floating-point-pitfalls-introductory-manual http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1167691/ieee-floating-poi... , or perhaps this: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19957-01/806-3568/ncg_goldberg.html http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19957-01/806-3568/ncg_goldberg.ht... (Note that most programming languages have a prominent warning about this in the documentation.)