Python: OverflowError: math range error

Question

I get a Overflow error when i try this calculation, but i cant figure out why.

1-math.exp(-4*1000000*-0.0641515994108)

Answer 1

The number you're asking math.exp to calculate has, in decimal, over 110,000 digits. That's slightly outside of the range of a double, so it causes an overflow.

Answer 2

To fix it use:

try:
    ans = math.exp(200000)
except OverflowError:
    ans = float('inf')

Answer 3

I think the value gets too large to fit into a double in python which is why you get the OverflowError. The largest value I can compute the exp of on my machine in Python is just sligthly larger than 709.78271.

Answer 4

This may give you a clue why:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=math.exp%28-4*1000000*-0.0641515994108%29

Notice the 111442 exponent.