floatsdivisionmixed types as you moved on in school from your first integer division to fractions and decimalsyou probably thought of / as fraction and could convert to decimal python can do decimal calculationstooapproximately try all set-off lines in this section in the shell / / there is more going on here than meets the eye as you should knowdecimal representations of values can be pain they may not be able to be expressed with finite number of characters try / alsoas you may have had emphasized in science classreal number measurements are often not exactand so the results of calculations with them are not exact in fact there are an infinite number of real number just between and and computer is finite it cannot store all those numbers exactlyon the other handpython does store integers exactly (well at least far past the number of atoms in the universe eventually even integers could get too big to store in computerthe difference in the way integers and decimals are stored and processed leads to decimals and integers being different types in python try type( note that is of type 'float'not 'decimalthere are several reasons for that name having to do with the actual way the type is stored internally "decimalimplies base tenour normal way for writing numbers with ten digits , , , , , , , , , computers actually use base twowith only two symbols , (did you note what symbols were in the machine language in context (page )?also floats use an encoding something like scientific notation from science classwith exponents that allow the decimal point to move or "float"as in the decimal case ( ) try type(- type(- even number that is actually an integer can be represented in the float type if decimal point is included always be sure to remember that floats may not be exact the use of base two makes this true even in cases where decimal numbers can be expressed exactlymore on that in string formats for float precision (page it is sometimes important to know the numeric type of the result of binary operation any combination of +-and with operands of type int produces an int if there is an operation /or if either operand is of type floatthe result is float try each in the shell (and guess the resulting type) * exponentiationsquare roots exponentiation is finding powers in mathematical notation( )( )( )( )= in python there is no fancy typography with raised exponent symbols like the so python uses *before powertry in the shell python does what you would expect mathematically with an expression like ( / * cautionthis is not the case in other common languages like java and +(or with python they treat the operation with integers like the current python //so the result of the expression above is since // is beginning with python