I raise a decimal number to a decimal power and it gives my infinity! How may I avoid that?

Hello All,

In part of my code, I am raising a decimal number to a decimal (negative) power and MATLAB gives me infinity! Clearly this is not true, and I was wondering how I may get around that. Here are the numbers when I print those numbers using a long format: base is 0.692557726286390 and exponent is -2.113743738000000. Of course, when I use these exact numbers in MATLAB and do (0.692557726286390 ^ -2.113743738000000), MATLAB does not generate infinity, but in my code it does. I believe the difference comes from the fact that those numbers that I reported are just representations of the actual numbers. But anyways I believe that raising a decimal number to another decimal number should not generate infinity. I appreciate your thoughts on how I may get around this problem.

Many Thanks,

Hamid

[Rik]

Please post code that will produce this issue.

[Hamid Firooz]

Thanks for your comment. I was working on creating a simple version of my code to post here, and I found a typo creating the issue. Sorry for bothering you.

[Rik]

No problem. That is the usefulness of writing a MWE.

Answer 1

[Vashist Hegde]

Try using a "." before you use the power (^) operator whenever you operate on individual values rather than matrices.

[Hamid Firooz]

I guess you mean the opposite, no? I mean we need to use "." when we use the power operator for matrices. Anyways in my case I am using the power operator for scalars rather than matrices.