Hi Bill.

15-Apr-04 09:29:02, Bill Birrell wrote to Jasen Betts


  >> NH> Otherwise, you would start getting negative numbers after a
  >> bit.

  >> or better.

  >> for (n=0; n> 0;

 BB> This baffles me. I ignored it first time round, but I really don't
 BB> see how squares can ever go negative. It is a characteristic of
 BB> squares that they are always positive. If you can get a negative
 BB> number by squaring an integer your math is by definition absurd.

You cant get such a number arithmetically, the only way is by overflow.
if for example you multiply 255 by 255 on a machine with 16 bit integers
the result looks negative.

 -=> Bye <=-

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