[Maxima] strange behaviour with simple decimals

[Jay Belanger]

Daniel Lakeland <dlakelan at street-artists.org> writes:
...
> You may be interested in this supplement to a common calculus
> textbook:
>
> http://www.stewartcalculus.com/data/default/upfiles/LiesCalcAndCompTold.pdf

I'll read that.

> In general, pocket calculators use decimal arithmetic because the
> people using pocket calculators expect them to behave that
> way. Computers use binary arithmetic because it is more efficient to
> create computers that use binary numbers.

But computer programs could use any base they want, at the cost of
some efficiency.  I would (perhaps foolishly) expect a computer
algebra system to do numerics better than, say, a simple C program.

Jay