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Numbers

UltimaCalc understands mathematical and scientific notation written with powers of 10. For example 1.23e4 = 1.23 x 104 = 12340 and one million may be written as 1e6. Positive numbers can be written with a leading '+' sign, if desired. UltimaCalc also understands numbers written in hexadecimal form.

Numbers which are neither very large nor very small will normally be displayed without the powers of 10 being shown. You can change the values at which UltimaCalc moves over to scientific notation by using the Number Format tab of the Options window

Sometimes a number which is shown as a whole number has a decimal point after it, and at other times there will be no decimal point. This is done deliberately. The absence of a decimal point means that the number is represented internally exactly as an integer. The presence of a decimal point indicates that the number is not actually an integer, but the difference is too small to be shown.

The number zero is interesting. If you start with a number which is greater than zero, and make the number smaller and smaller (such as by dividing by a positive number which is greater than one), the number will approach zero more and more closely. Eventually, the number will become so small that it can no longer be represented correctly, and most calculators will round it down to zero, without telling you. UltimaCalc saves you from such a loss of all precision, by warning of an underflow.

UltimaCalc sometimes distinguishes between zero and minus zero. Therefore, the display will sometimes show -0 where you might have expected to see 0.

In particular, notice that atan2(-1, 0) = 180 but atan2(-1, -0) = -180 when calculating in degrees.

The largest number that can be stored is more than 1e9860 or 109860. This is no small number. As an example, the Sun consists mainly of hydrogen, in the form of protons. A proton has a mass of about 1.67e-27kg. The Sun's mass is about 2.0e30kg. Dividing that by the mass of a proton shows that the Sun contains about 1.2e57 protons. That's a huge number by most standards.