Why is this true? Java appears to produce a result with a small discrepancy when multiplying two floats compared to C and even the Java Math.pow method.

Java:

```
float a = 0.88276923;

double b = a * a;   // b becomes 0.779281497001648  <---- what???
b = Math.pow(a,2);  // b becomes 0.7792815081874238

```

C:

```
float a = 0.88276923;

double b = a * a;   // b becomes 0.7792815081874238
pow(a,2);           // b becomes 0.7792815081874238

```

Update: Per Ed S.'s comment, I have also found that the C behavior changes depending on the compiler. Using gcc it appears to match the Java behavior. Using visual studio (depending on your target platform) it can produce the results seen above or those seen in Java. Ugh.