The OS X calculator is one of my favorite applications and I use it every day for work (I find the binary display in the programmer view especially useful). So I was very surprised when I noticed that it was giving me the wrong answer for log(0.5). I was getting log(0.5) = 0.301 when it should be -0.301. Strangely 1-log(0.5) was correctly shown as 1.301. Well today I discovered that this only happens if you enable “Show Separators” in the View menu.
Does anyone else see this or is it just me?
John, the mind boggles that you had the misfortune to run into such an obscure bug.
I confirm the same behaviour with my 10.5.4 system.
well done, I’m sure Mr. Jobs will have a free gadget winging it’s way to you
jason.
John,
FWIW there was no need to get all clever with your logs. With show separators enabled the calculator incorrectly displays any number > -1 and < 0.
Maybe its a feature?
John
A calculator is supposed to be reliable. Whilst slight deviations due to rounding errors cannot be avoided, a single result being *that* far off already renders the calculator moot. And there’s a lot more. Switch to scientific view and try e. g.
2^Pi
2^(ln(Pi))
(2^3)!*(2^2)!
Such a shame. I’d rather ship OS X without any calc than fool the users with crap like this.