cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/8653164

Transcript:

Cueball: Hey, check it out: eπ−π is 19.999099979. That’s weird.
Black Hat: Yeah. That’s how I got kicked out of the ACM in college.
Cueball: …what?

Black Hat: During a competition, I told the programmers on our team that eπ−π was a standard test of floating-point handlers – it would come out to 20 unless they had rounding errors.

Cueball: That’s awful.
Black Hat: Yeah, they dug through half their algorithms looking for the bug before they figured it out.

Hover text:

Also, I hear the 4th root of (92 + 192/22) is pi.

  • sharkwellington@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    10 months ago

    I get that it’s a comic but this doesn’t feel like a conversation that would ever occur in real life. Granted I don’t hang out with programmers or mathematicians so maybe it’s more plausible than you would think.

    • Thoth19@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      8 months ago

      This is totally a conversation that would happen in real life. I’ve watched a friend of mine try to convince someone who had a bit much to drink that the primes are closed under multiplication for an hour. Absolutely hysterical

    • Wodge@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      My kid is studying physics in university, and she comes home and tells me physics anecdotes which I don’t understand, so I always reply “That’s Numberwang!”.

      So I can see these types of conversations happening between math and programming types.