floating point constants

[Doug Gwyn]

In article <14675 at dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> ari at eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Ari Halberstadt) writes:
>... it would simply result in a divide by zero, which any normal
>maching would have a fit over.

Well, you see, the "maching" in question is not normal.  It implements
IEEE Std 754 floating-point arithmetic, which includes the notion that
1.0/0.0 is a representable "infinity" value suitable for further use
in computation.  Now, if you want to say that's a really sick notion,
I'd be inclined to agree with you.  The trouble is that it's widely
adopted.