On 10/10/06, Dick Moores <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > And another question. That page also says, "Almost all module > functions depend on the basic function random(), which generates a > random float uniformly in the semi-open range [0.0, 1.0). Python uses > the Mersenne Twister as the core generator. It produces 53-bit > precision floats and has a period of 2**19937-1." What is a 53-bit > precision float? Would that be something like a float accurate to 8 > or 9 figures (dividing 53 by 8). Or what?
Hi Dick, Have a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_precision and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_floating-point_standard Basically, floating point numbers are of the form "x times 2**y", where x is a binary number between 1 and 10 (that's binary 10, decimal 2). 53 bits means 53 binary digits of precision (including the initial 1). Does that help? -- John. _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor