Is it reasonable to expect the cosine of (exactly) 0 to be (exactly) 1? $ cat > a.c <<! #include <math.h> main() { printf("%g\n", 1.0-cos(0.0)); } ! $ cc a.c -lm $ a.out 1.11022e-16 $ cc a.c -lm43 $ a.out 0 Allan R. Wilks AT&T Bell Labs allan at research.att.com