Peter,
Because the "-4" means times 2^(-4), your result represents .036
accurate to 104 places following the binary point.
Bob
>I've often wondered about trying Maple (any good?).
>
>Anyway, here is a reply from Wolfram tech support, turns out I wasn't
>using Mathematica correctly (a common occurrence with me, not a simple
>app to use). Os other were correct, 0.036 is not base-2
>representable, and this explains the integer round-down "error" first
>reported in this thread.
>
>======
>I believe Mathematica is working correctly.
>
>As specified in help of RealDigits, RealDigits[x]normally returns a list of
>digits whose length is equal to Precision[x].
>
>Please use the correct precision.
>
>RealDigits[0.036`100, 2, 100]
>
>returns:
>
>{{1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0,
>0,
> 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1,
>1,
> 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0,
>1,
> 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1,
>1,
> 0, 0, 1}, -4}
>
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