Two to the one twelth power

[John Delacour]

At 4:42 am -0400 30/9/06, KeyKat88 at aol.com wrote:

>Greetings,
>
>        Punching 2 to the 1/12 powerÊinto my calculator,Êit gives me 
>1.05946285.

You must have a bad calculator. The figure to 8 decimal places is

   1.05946309

or to 13 places

   1.0594630943593

But it's no use using a level of precision your calculator doesn't understand.

>  ÊHow far does this number go on? Is it a number like Pi that goes on and on?

Probably not, but it doesn't matter.

>  What sort of software will let me seeÊhow far it can go? ÊIf I am 
>doing harmony calculations, how far is it practical to go? What is 
>the norm?

As with all sorts of measurement you need to decide what degree of 
error is acceptable.

If you raise 1.05946309435929526 to the 96th power,
you will get 2560.00000000001 instead of 2560


If you use 1.05946309 you will get 2559.99991665553

Using 2^(1/12) in your formula will give you the maximum precision 
available, but whatever you use will be quite accurate enough for 
your needs given the frequency range of audible sound.

JD