Jerry's Calculation of Entropy in Genome

even if 1.6! weren't uhh, what's the word? irrational? imaginary? impossible? insane?...i'd seriously doubt they did the calculation anyways. not on a calculator at least. my ti89 (otherwise known as "proof god exists") craps itself trying to do a factorial of a five digit number.it takes maple to crank out this enormous number. anyone else here have maple or a similar program? i considered posting 41471!, but, well, it'd severly piss off everyone trying to READ this thread. instead, i'll just post a screenshot.you'll have to take my word for it that there's 32 and half more screens where that came from.edit: checking the (incorrect) calculation in maple, btw, it does render the same answer. maple uses, probably, the same algorithm that will allow it to (incorrectly) render factorials of decimals.at first, i thought even that bit of calculation was wrong, but i missed a pair of parenthesis. because the op did and i copied that.order of operations, kids.

quote:

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> W:=(41469.4 + 1.6)! / ((41469.4)!*(1.6)!);
W := 0.1710661910*10⁸

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> W:=(41469.4 + 1.6)! / (41469.4)!*(1.6)!;
W := 0.3496295939*10⁸

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This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 05-13-2005 08:13 AM

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