It's a problem with any program that represents numbers in base 2.
This is a number very close to 0.
0.0000000000000000612574
You could wrap your formula with =round() (or one of its sibling functions) to
get as close as you wanted
=ROUND(COS(PI()/2),5)
will round to 5 decimal places.
Charlie Johnson wrote:
>
> "Charlie Johnson" <cj-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:WpNub.10411$(E-Mail Removed)...
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Can something like this be done: Cos(A1:A10)? That is calculate the value
> > of Cos(A1) through Cos(A10). If so, how? I keep gettting an error.
> >
> > Lurch
>
> >
> >
> Also,
>
> When I try to compute the cos(pi()/2) , I keep getting 6.12574E-17. Does
> that mean 0? I know from computer programming that something that small is
> essentially 0. Is that how Excel represents 0? If so, I would have thought
> MS could have programmed that into Excel.
>
> Lurch
--
Dave Peterson
(E-Mail Removed)