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by TheLoneWolfling 4242 days ago
Nope. This is not correct either.

> >>> 434437* * 15 + 588129* * 15 - 588544 * *15

> -604550152144288043930860169354171954730939671404246170822386878582482

(Edit: how do I display two asterisks in a row? It's supposed to be number(asterisk)(asterisk)number.)

This is using Python, which does arbitrary-precision integer arithmetic.

Google's calculator probably uses floating-point numbers internally, and hence starts losing precision.

2 comments

It seems that advancements in technology have made mathematical trolling much more difficult. :)

In case anyone is curious, the above "solutions" are called near-misses, since they're almost correct. A clever person came up with an algorithm to generate interesting near-misses for low exponents. See the table on page 15: http://arxiv.org/pdf/math/0005139v1.pdf

Related: http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/526330/fermats-last-...

Have fun!

What you really need is a "solution" that is wrong in just one digit somewhere in the middle that everyone would easily miss when comparing.
Python having easy arbitrary-precision integer arithmetic is one of the things I most like about it.
Arbitrary-precision integers is definitely one of Python's underrated feature.