An Interesting Excel Bug
Joel has an interesting post about a current Excel 2007 bug.
Here is the short explanation given by Joel. What is 3 x 1/3
, if I ask you? You would rattle off “1
, of course”. What if I tell you - “note down 1/3
in decimal on paper, then multiply by 3
” ? Now since there is no finite decimal representation of 1/3
on paper(you will keep writing 0.333333333333
…. forever), you will stop after a few decimal places. And when you multiply by 3
, you get 0.99999
, which is not the same precise number as 1
.
The same problem arises in Excel because of the way Excel works with numbers. Check the article for complete Excel specific explanation.