there is no "/on the keyboard linuxaltgr shift use "/instead / this is floating point numbersurprise there is no division symbol on the keyboard without holding three keys down at the same time again convention has arisen to use the forward slash character (strictly called "solidus"for division so far there have been no surprises in python' integer arithmetic that changes with division not all integer division can be achieved precisely you cannot divide into exactly because of this python always returns type of number capable of representing fractional values ( floating point numbereven when the division would have been exact