What other surprises await?!

I'm sure there are many. If you are using Mm to help with equations...I
think it has been discussed here before where the consensus is that Excel's
interpreter operates in a kind of "left to right" only mode. So, with a
function like:
=2^3^4
Excel returns 4096 because it's grouping is "left associative." With Mm on
the other hand, Power is "right associative." Therefo

2^3^4 returns:
2417851639229258349412352

I don't know if there's such a thing as a "Standard" here. One just has to
be aware of them. And in either case, it is better to use () to clearly
indicate meaning as others have mentioned.

( However, if I was a betting man, my money would be on Mm! I think I once
read why this is so, but I can't find it at the moment.) :)

Dana DeLouis



"fred" wrote in message
...

BOULDERDASH!!! This is a horrible bug in Excel (whereof I was
previously unaware). It is very standard that exponentiaion takes
precedence over negation. Ask any semi-decent high school student to
draw a graph of y = -x^2, and what will you get?


Thank you sir!

As another poster noted, M.P.E.P is a programming forum, but told that it
violates math convention, they still argue. They probably just didn't
believe me.

Another said "much ado about nothing", but I think this is a horrible bug
too. Excel should at least follow regular math conventions. What other
surprizes await?!